Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary. – John Milton

The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any. – Hannah Arendt

My shock over the past decade has been the failure of thought. I was convinced humans, intent on our survival, would wake to our obvious jeopardy; sensing we were drifting toward a cataract, we would unite to reverse our boat.

I have always seen myself as a moderate, centrist, balancing between extremes. As a young man I wrote a poem, which doesn’t sound like a young man’s. It’s called, “Like Brahms in Browns”:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedLike Brahms I feel my life in browns,tans, moderatos, mediums, warms.Shock of white, weight of crowns,absolutes unseam my forms.

Nothing is but something elseis with equal rectitude:one man’s mete’s another’s wealth.My clothing makes you nude.

And yet, and yet – my equal sign –but, also, nevertheless, however,I cheer the rhythm of a mad designand wear my coat in rainy weather

and in sun a lightweight shirtand tie if ties are what is worn.Love and death too much unearthmy faith to not adhere to form.

Editing my community’s newspaper for twenty years, I took pride in non-partisanship. “There is no Republican or Democratic way,” I’d sing-song, “to pick up the garbage.”

When the Nameless One erupted into our national life, I was convinced his manifest cruelty, crudity, criminality, truthlessness and turpitude would soon whoosh him from the public stage. No person in their right mind could support such an abomination once they opened their eyes. Never have I been more wrong. Mine was not just political disappointment but existential bafflement. How could we be so dumb! Even today, faced with overwhelming evidence of his unfitness to lead, a third of my countrymen applaud his egregious greed and ineptitude. Humans, then, were not sane. We were… what?

I wince at the assurance of my conclusion. Who am I to declare others crazy and myself sane! Isn’t everyone entitled to their point of view? Isn’t every point of view, as I once thought, at least somewhat valid?

Alas, there is no defensible “other side” in our national debate. There is sane – and insane. Later, perhaps, we can resume discussions about policies and politics, but right now we’re tightrope-walking across an abyss. Either we reverse course or lose civilization itself.

What’s wrong with us? Our intellects aren’t equipped to cope with the complexity of being. We conclude without thinking, then shut the door on thought. Wily manipulators bewilder us to enrich themselves. The complications of modernity make us more credulous. With infinitudes to know, who can be sure of anything!

How to govern such stupefied creatures? Can we reeducate ourselves back to a viable participatory democracy or must we surrender to a tyrant, praying we get a good one?

I opt for hope – not because I’m hopeful but because despair can only hasten humanity’s demise. We must become warriors for truth, decency, grace, beauty, justice, sense – each in our way. We have no more choice than my parents’ generation had to resist Hitler or today’s Ukrainians to defy their despoiler. Our would-be overlords want us to be dazed, dopey, helpless. That’s the totalitarian playbook: baffle the intellect, confound the will, then herd people like cattle into their cage. We must THINK and share our thoughts. I must write these words, not because they’re useful but because they’re all I have.