Still Here
Six decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had 2022. It was a scary, pivotal year of comparable
danger. At stake was the fate of the world,
determined by US elections. If democracy
had lost the vote, fascism would have risen, with the geopolitical balance teetering
into darkness.
But the American people did not support the hate-cult
worship of a tyrant. Because of this, all
of us, everywhere, have been given a gift this season, a certain hope: that we are not necessarily doomed, that our
better angels can prevail.
One prolific historian, speaking on a newscast (Jon Meacham,
I believe), said that this is the most hopeful he has felt in six years. The New York Times posted an article
yesterday on the survival and surge of democracy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/us/politics/democracy-voters-elections-2022.html
From the article:
Whatever their reasons for voting against candidates who
parroted Mr. Trump’s election claims, Republicans who did so often spoke of a
more general estrangement from a party that had broadly turned those claims
into a loyalty test — and of their distaste for both the party’s indulgence of
Mr. Trump and of a no-holds-barred brand of politics that they said favors
winning at all costs.
I never thought fascism could rise in my country, much less
on the shoulders of a flagrantly despicable man. No wolf in sheep’s clothing, just an obvious egotist
of avarice and prejudice. Despite his
sadistic lack of morality, or perhaps because of it, he seemed a political
juggernaut, someone who possessed the ability to obsess others, someone with
the dark charisma of a Hitler. One third
of the American populace bowed down.
What I’ve learned of fascism, during this ugly six-year trial,
is that it is an old strategy: warlords with
truthless loyalty tests. It is what
Plato sought to refute when he challenged Thrasymachus. He argued that reason should govern, not an
egomaniac who had turned a portion of the people into fawning worshippers, and
cowed the rest with readily used swords.
Can reason govern, without being subverted by a demagogic
monster? That is the big question facing
humanity in the 21st century.
It is tantamount to, “Will we survive?”
The right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ based
on the innate dignity of every person, is beautiful intellectual bedrock. If such wisdom steers us, moving
forward with honesty and integrity, a wonderful future awaits.
Imagine robots that have been engineered with limitations,
so that they have no capability to inflict hurt or harm. Robots that promote happiness. Contrast that with a different future, one where
robots surveil and police us, robots that kill easily and swiftly, at the merciless
whim of a paranoid warlord.
2022. It was a huge
test for democracy. To quote Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “We are still here.” He made this announcement in February, right after the Russian army, under the iron-grip of a tyrant, invaded Ukraine to annex and assimilate
it.
Just a few days ago, Zelenskyy gave an historic speech to
the US Congress. Democracy still struggles
onward in Ukraine. And for now, it struggles onward here, in the United States, as well.
=================================
Posts
