Familiar Comforts
My favorite C.S. Lewis book is The Great Divorce, in which a group of people in Hell get an opportunity to visit Heaven. In the end, all but one of them choose to go back. Each one has something they need to let go of in order to enter heaven - some kind of pride or greed or hatred - and they can't bring themselves to do it.
More recently, in this week's episode of the anime series Kino's Journey, Kino's fellow traveler Shizu boards a city-sized ship, where the population lives under the oppressive rule of the Tower Clan. Seeing that the ship is breaking down and falling apart, he and Kino overthrow the Tower Clan and bring the people to the safety of dry land - only to discover that they prefer the ship and don't believe his story that it's going to sink.
I halfway expected the people to start shouting "Fake news! Fake news!"
Just because people's lives are bad, that doesn't mean they'll automatically leap at the chance for something better. Their old lives are familiar, and familiar is comforting, even when the familiar is bad. Sometimes they don't recognize what's wrong in their lives, and they don't see a need to change. Sometimes they don't want to see what's wrong in their lives, because they don't want to change.
Here in the Trumpocalypse, we have plenty of people like the characters in The Great Divorce. They won't let go of White Supremacy, or our society's worship of money. They reject anything that looks like it came from "educated elites," and take joy in upsetting and hurting "libruls." Honestly, I don't know what can be done about them. I hope someone else does, because I got nuthin'.
But here in the Trumpocalypse, we also have a larger group of people who are more like the citizens of the Ship Country. They're not bad people. They're just comfortable with the way things are, and don't see a need to change. They go to church and are happy to give to the poor, but they don't see a need to do something as radical as changing the system so there aren't as many poor people to give to. They don't hate people who are different from them, but they might not see why things have to change and allow "those people" into "their" space. And they care about nature, but not so much that they'd change how they live, because maybe the scientists are wrong, you know?
It's this middle group we have to appeal to if we're going to get out of our Trumpian nightmare - and that's not easy. The people of the Ship Country treated Shizu nicely until he brought them to dry land - then they turned on him. Push the wide middle of our society too hard, and they'll do the same thing. Even if they're eventually fed up with Trump's tweeting and lying and general oafishness, that won't keep them from running right back to a politician with the same extreme agenda but without the psychotic behavior. We've had almost forty years now of the Republican trickle-down fairy tale, and almost fifty years of the Nixonian appeal to "the silent majority." They may not be getting the country anywhere, but they're comfortably familiar.
That's why I keep feeling like turning to the up-and-coming generations is our only option. They haven't had time to get comfortable with the way things are. They're more open to looking at things differently. And that's good, because they're going to need new ideas to deal with the mess we're leaving them.
Maybe looking to the next generations is my response, since I've been writing for kids anyway. Maybe there are other people who see opportunities with the current generation, and who know how to make a difference. I hope so, because I'd like to think we have better options than letting everything crash and then picking up the pieces. That wouldn't be comfortable for anyone.
More recently, in this week's episode of the anime series Kino's Journey, Kino's fellow traveler Shizu boards a city-sized ship, where the population lives under the oppressive rule of the Tower Clan. Seeing that the ship is breaking down and falling apart, he and Kino overthrow the Tower Clan and bring the people to the safety of dry land - only to discover that they prefer the ship and don't believe his story that it's going to sink.
I halfway expected the people to start shouting "Fake news! Fake news!"
Just because people's lives are bad, that doesn't mean they'll automatically leap at the chance for something better. Their old lives are familiar, and familiar is comforting, even when the familiar is bad. Sometimes they don't recognize what's wrong in their lives, and they don't see a need to change. Sometimes they don't want to see what's wrong in their lives, because they don't want to change.
Here in the Trumpocalypse, we have plenty of people like the characters in The Great Divorce. They won't let go of White Supremacy, or our society's worship of money. They reject anything that looks like it came from "educated elites," and take joy in upsetting and hurting "libruls." Honestly, I don't know what can be done about them. I hope someone else does, because I got nuthin'.
But here in the Trumpocalypse, we also have a larger group of people who are more like the citizens of the Ship Country. They're not bad people. They're just comfortable with the way things are, and don't see a need to change. They go to church and are happy to give to the poor, but they don't see a need to do something as radical as changing the system so there aren't as many poor people to give to. They don't hate people who are different from them, but they might not see why things have to change and allow "those people" into "their" space. And they care about nature, but not so much that they'd change how they live, because maybe the scientists are wrong, you know?
It's this middle group we have to appeal to if we're going to get out of our Trumpian nightmare - and that's not easy. The people of the Ship Country treated Shizu nicely until he brought them to dry land - then they turned on him. Push the wide middle of our society too hard, and they'll do the same thing. Even if they're eventually fed up with Trump's tweeting and lying and general oafishness, that won't keep them from running right back to a politician with the same extreme agenda but without the psychotic behavior. We've had almost forty years now of the Republican trickle-down fairy tale, and almost fifty years of the Nixonian appeal to "the silent majority." They may not be getting the country anywhere, but they're comfortably familiar.
That's why I keep feeling like turning to the up-and-coming generations is our only option. They haven't had time to get comfortable with the way things are. They're more open to looking at things differently. And that's good, because they're going to need new ideas to deal with the mess we're leaving them.
Maybe looking to the next generations is my response, since I've been writing for kids anyway. Maybe there are other people who see opportunities with the current generation, and who know how to make a difference. I hope so, because I'd like to think we have better options than letting everything crash and then picking up the pieces. That wouldn't be comfortable for anyone.
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