Rebecca Solnit on David Graeber:
That joy: maybe this is how everyone should feel about ideas and the ways that they open up or close off possibilities. The way that, as he wrote, “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.” If you truly believe that, if you perceive a world that is constructed according to certain assumptions and values, then you see that it can be changed, not least by changing those assumptions and values.
We have to recognise that ideas are tools that we wield – and with them, some power. David wanted to put these tools in everyone’s hands, or remind them that they are already there. Which is part of why he worked hard at – and succeeded in – writing in a style that wasn’t always simple but was always as clear and accessible as possible, given the material. Egalitarianism is a prose style, too. Our mutual friend the writer, film-maker, and debt abolitionist Astra Taylor texted him: “Re-reading Debt. You are such a damn good writer. A rare skill among lefties.” He texted back that August, a month before his demise: “Why thanks! Well at least I take care to do so – I call it ‘being nice to the reader,’ which is an extension of the politics, in a sense.”
Angus is either unaware of or indifferent to the work I need to get done this morning.
When I suggest we need more Christian politics rather than less, I can imagine my secular progressive neighbor getting anxious, as if theocracy is around the corner. But in fact, the opposite is true. All should hope for a more Christian politics. What currently passes for Christian politics is a sub-Christian syncretism that prays to a vaguely moralistic god who plays favorites, a deity of our making whom we trot out to license nationalism and self-interest. This politics shows no signs of being disturbed by the cross, the ascension, or the eschaton. It is concerned only with winning, revenge, and resentment. In other words, our so-called Christian politics have been captivated by the liturgies of the earthly city rather than the city of God.
Here’s a quick post that’s a bit about journalism and a bit about hypertext and the power of the link. Note that while most social media platforms don’t enable proper web links, like the one in the previous sentence, micro.blog does. Another win for micro.blog!
In ev’ry government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
— Oliver Goldsmith
The estimable and always thoughtful A. M. Juster reviews The Shield of Achilles. I am grateful for his kind words about my introduction, sorry that I was unable to convince him of the book’s excellence, and of course deeply wounded that he thinks Edward Mendelson wrote the notes. In fact, I did.
Based on that new post of mine, my friend Rick Gibson is having a t-shirt made up for me.
My one comment about the election — or rather the discourse surrounding the election — requires me to explain how people misread Joan Didion’s most famous sentence.
My Substack account has gotten completely out of control, and I can best deal with that by deleting my account. I will soon create a new one and re-subscribe to the good stuff. If you’re on Substack and reading this, then of course yours is the good stuff.
My thoughts on Nicholas Jenkins’s magnificent new book on Auden, The Island, are in the new issue of The Hedgehog Review.
Craig Mod – AKA @craidmod.com:
Where am I typing these words? I’m sitting in a tiny café on the edge of a small city, surrounded by a lifetime of train love. Abject, unstoppable, fully-committed train and model train love. A little man behind the counter — an eighty-something year old guy who has no desire to chat with me, who can barely hear (probably why he doesn’t want to chat), and yet gets up each morning and opens his café (not for the cash at this point, as it doesn’t seem to be making any) — is running his perfect model trains around their magical track, a track that circumscribes the whole shop like locomotive hug, with beautiful handmade scenery and hand-painted backdrops. For nearly half a century, tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands? probably) of people have come here and been filled with delight. Here, an obsession transmuted into love with a side of toast. Given the age of the shop, it’s in pristine condition. The counter polished, the trains without any dust. The egg sandwich actually an omelette sandwich with a bit of jam. (Yum.) The coffee strong. The music classical. I’m the only one here. Sitting in the corner looking at this incredible scene — truly a life’s work, a work of life. This, too, a political act. We forget that. Is it crazy to say that a place like this represents a pinnacle of a life well-used? It does in my eyes. Archetypes move humanity forward and the trains are beside the point: The play is the point, the full-throttled commitment to that play, the showing up day after day for it, the dialing in of a private obsession while simultaneously giving it back to the world as a gift. Play. Something we’ve lost. Certainly in this infinitude of toxic discourse.
Here I am, as usual, trying to get us to be clear about what questions we’re asking.