The reality of now flavors my writing in some regards even if it is not a specific goal. Information about what goes on in the world and my beliefs about these circumstances are embedded in my mind - they bubble up in my writing and my comments to other posts.
These are crazy times; for me, it's impossible not to think and write about them. But is it impolite? Probably.
I try to cultivate a safe place as well; safety from judgment or cancellation. Not safe from certain topics.
Bill Maher always says he wants to go back to a time when we didn't discuss religion or politics, but I wonder if that's a good idea. We got along better, but by avoiding these topics for so long, maybe we've underdeveloped our ability to accept differing points of view with grace. Our reluctance to discuss these topics may be one reason why we're in such a quandary. We might need to do the hard thing; we might need to think our way out of this, together.
Good points. We really have gone for too long NOT talking about controversial topics with people we know.
I have no problem talking about politics or religion with people who understand the perils of a conversation like that, but most often we agree, and it turns into a bitch session.
I admit I rarely have to face such a conversation with an adversary. I see it as a waste of time to engage with people who aren't serious about the problem and aren't really looking for solutions, so I deliberately stay away from them. And they don't usually come looking for me, either!
Thank you for writing this. I haven't posted since July. It's not just because of politics. But I must admit, I'm right there with you on the sway my worry and emotional stress are causing. It's not the sway that is one party one day and another party the next. It's the sway of suffocating emotions that are titillating my nerves to such an extent that I'm feeling serious trauma.
I was a political science student at UC Berkeley during a time when UCLA was more radical. Berkeley was tame in the late 70s, early 80s. There was a little tiny field that was starting then that got me really energized. I felt it was my path. Political Psychology. However, the graduate program I wanted was at Yale, but the college and teacher I wanted was at Harvard. Once I experienced the terrifying but tantalizing concept of "freedom" this Sagittarian never went back to school. I study whatever I'm interested in, freely, on my own, without tests. Enough with authority that doesn't want to be there.
I'd been a student leader. I'd delegated before I knew what minimum wage was. I knew how to campaign and hated every minute of it. I was successful. Always the presidency. It wasn't like I was vice prez first, or secretary, or any other position prior. Always the presidency. As a young girl, I read about presidents. Recently seeing Ken Burn's new documentary U.S. and the Holocaust has traumatized me. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the holocaust. Not nearly enough obviously.
It surprised me when racism came front and center after Obama became president. I didn't think we had a racist problem. Oh, isolated bursts here and there, but not overall. What a wake-up call! My mom was a lifelong democrat. My dad was a republican who became a democrat because of Reagan.
I thought I would be the first woman president of the US. Then I interned on the hill in a program called Cal In The Capitol in the summer of 1981. I worked for an alcoholic congressman from Maryland. Within three weeks I realized in order to get anything done in DC one had to sell their soul. A Berkeley sister got to work for Dick Gregory that summer so I did see other slants than the office I worked in. But I realized then and there, I didn't want to sell my soul.
Now I feel responsible for what has happened. I was working on Political Psychology research on 3 Mile Island the summer I graduated. Looking in the Congressional Record I saw Jonathan Schell read pages from his book THE FATE OF THE EARTH. He was trying to convince the politicians, voted by the people of our country at the time, that nuclear winter was not survivable. I thought mankind would be wiped off the face of the earth before 2000. I was not going to bring a child into this mess.
I never saw this quagmire we are in as a futuristic possibility at the time. My favorite part of political psychology was psychobiography. As a leader, I really delved into what were my motivations for being a leader, and a politician. As a brilliant teacher on the ethics of power, Harold Laswell said, "All of us are born politicians. Most of us outgrow it."
I've outgrown it. When I saw the republicans who created the Lincoln Project I could feel my dad's earlier beliefs about politics coming to the fore. There is a responsible republican ideology and then there is what we are dealing with now, which is not responsible at all.
I could write for hours on this... but you really touched off the spark that is stymying my productivity. I didn't realize it because other health and friend issues have been easier and taking my time. Thank you for your bravery and sensitivity.
Wow, what a story! It looks like you have a goldmine of material whenever you decide it's time to get it out there. Fascinating. When you mentioned Ken Burns' 'Holocaust' it struck me that that may have been the catalyst for this piece. I don't know. There are so many triggers, and, as a woman, I take all of them personally. They really are out to get us.
I never wanted to be a politician, either, but I also never saw myself as a leader. I knew and worked with a lot of state and local politicians and the amount of phony gladhanding they were required to do was enough to turn me away forever.
I see a lot of criticism over the Lincoln Project, even among people whose opinions I value, and I don't understand it. I don't know how I would have gotten through the Trump years without them--and I'm a lifelong Democrat. But this is where we're at now. The divisions are handicapping us when we should be united in our ability to see through the bullshit and work together toward our common goal. Preserving an entire democracy is pretty important.
They can't win again. Too much is at stake. Yet the possibility that they might is giving me nightmares.
Thank you. I've never wavered in the past 7 years. The guy who got Fox News together was in the room when Nixon said, If we'd had a network of our own, this never would have happened. So much money is being made, and this keeps the war going. It's like the people in WWII who wanted to keep selling munitions to Germany and the Allies. The criticism of the Lincoln Project is because it makes sense. The LP cuts through the crazy. What causes me most concern is the laws republican state congresses have passed to make the numbers impossible. Why doesn't democracy mean anything anymore to the "conservatives?" Trump keeps telling his minority and the vocal percentage that the Democrats are destroying our country. He blames others for exactly what he's doing. I have a brother that did that and is a huge Trump fan. He drove both my folks crazy at the end of their lives. I just watched a Kanopy movie Kindertransports to Sweden. I'm trying not to take up too much space on your page. I had an experience at Dachau in 1980 during which I said, "If it was 40 years prior or 40 years in the future he'd have me up against the wall with a bullet aimed right between my eyes." I know what you are talking about. I've always said if world leaders would negotiate in a hot tub, things would be different. Pam Gregory said to focus on keeping your inner mind calm and confident that healing will take place. It's hard to understand that when there are those out there who want to take control and hang their enemies. Who would vote for that?
Thank you for writing this. We need honesty now more than ever. And, honestly, I have been using my writing to escape from the current fraught political environment. I try to do what I can when it comes to activism, but writing has been a sort of holy and safe space. Thanks again. I appreciate your posts.
There's nothing wrong with choosing your own writing platform and sticking with it. If opinions and advocacy aren't for you as a writer, then you must go on doing what you're doing. This is mainly for those who have doubts. I thought it was time to talk about it.
I know you from your political writing, and your unapologetic liberalism is one thing that attracted me to you.
I don’t believe it serves us well to ignore politics. The only reason not to talk about politics or religion is because we are incurious beings who wish not to have our worldviews threatened or wish not to threaten those of other incurious beings. If we can approach each other with curiosity and a desire to understand instead of a desire to change someone and/or a sense that ours is only the right answer, we can talk about politics or religion and still maintain our friendships. But that assumes everyone is curious like me, and unfortunately they’re not.
As a writer, my writing has transitioned from being mostly about myself to being about people who identify with me in some way, and my intended audience has expanded as the impact of what I have to say has increased. My novel that was about a woman wanting to know what was going on in her body during pregnancy has turned into a speculative commentary of personal autonomy and our obligations to society. It wasn’t conscious, just a natural consequence of expanding my worldview and looking outward and inward - being published does a book no good, after all, if it only appeals to the author.
It always feels really trivial to me to write about celebrity scandals and ultra rich crypto investors and made-up island romances when our world is collapsing around us. So I guess writers can write what they write - the less consequential it is to our time and place, the less likely I am to want to read it.
"The only reason not to talk about politics or religion is because we are incurious beings who wish not to have our worldviews threatened or wish not to threaten those of other incurious beings. If we can approach each other with curiosity and a desire to understand instead of a desire to change someone and/or a sense that ours is only the right answer, we can talk about politics or religion and still maintain our friendships."
This is it almost exactly. Assuming we're talking to someone who also sees they don't have all the answers. I think those conversations are the most productive. And the rarest.
The idea that people can just ignore politics is ludicrous. Everything is political. Pretending to be apolitical is political too.
I try to be funny with my writing, but there's no way I could pretend current events don't influence how I think about the world. When I'm doing a satire piece it tends to be overtly political. But even if I'm writing something more generally humorous - like I did today about pro wrestling - it's impossible not to find parallels with our current economic and political landscape.
Bottom line: if people want to put their head in the sand, that's on them. Write on, Ramona.
I do know people who can ignore politics without a single thought about their place in our society and what has to happen to make it function. They 're takers instead of givers. Instead of helping to make it work they demand that other people make it work. And of course they're never satisfied. Hence the need to try someone new--especially a maverick who knows nothing about governing but is better at complaining than they are.
My $.02: The beauty of voice is that it's yours. Anything else is inauthentic. Emote and opine as you wish! For every reader who leaves there is one who arrives. If your goal is to allow room for those with whom you disagree, someone whose fundamental truths are not in line with yours, your words will reflect that. Or not, as you choose. No right or wrong, just what is.
My mother lived to be 93. She was disappointed in me for leaning left. We couldn't have political discussions without one of us becoming annoyed with the other, but she continued to initiate the conversations all the same. I believe she wanted me to change my mind, and she hoped her comments would bring me around. As my parent, she saw it has her job to impress her ideals on me. Interestingly, though, she could talk with my older daughter without irritation. Something about the generational difference and the way my daughter spoke to her meant that they had real dialogue instead of arguments. They seldom agreed, but they were civil and, it seemed to me, open to hearing each others' opinions.
Yes, I write my feelings. I write (and read) about politics, and income disparity, and environmental decline, and race, and bodily autonomy and every other challenging topic. My essays aren't usually specifically about those things, but they're in there all the same because you I can't separate myself from them. I also bring them into face-to-face conversations, in an effort to teach myself how to listen for commonality. That's my voice.
I love what you've written here. I posted another political piece on my second Substack, Constant Commoner, and crickets...again. I think I'll give up using it as a platform for my political pieces and pitch outside sources instead.
I used to publish a lot on Crooks and Liars, then stopped for some reason. I pitched a piece this week and they took it. I now have access to that venue, at least, whenever I want to vent!
I'm going to be looking for more. I have a voice, I have plenty to say, and I want it all to get out there.
I'm an introvert and Enneagram 1w9. My safest space for being the most honest with myself and others is my writing. It's my advocacy too. My blog is my safe space. And I've learned that it isn't necessarily safe, when those who have more power than me have questioned my faith or patriotism because I write what I see and I'm as honest as I can be about it. But I'm here with you and I'm thankful for writers like you who encourage me to keep speaking out.
P.S. I've discovered that social media (although I love Twitter and it's where I've found "my" people) doesn't allow me to get my voice out there because those in my life who I desperately want to read my words have blocked me out. So I guess I'll just keep writing here and hope that others share what I have to say.
Sorry I missed this, Sarah. I know what you mean about the people in our lives we want to get through to, but I look at what we do as far more important in the long run.
In the real world our opinions have a chance of making a real difference. Our voices reach a wider audience. It matters that what we have to say might influence people we don't know and don't know us. In turn, we have to listen to them. We couldn't do that by staying within our nuclear bounds.
I say this because, while some in my nuclear circle think far differently from me, we manage to stay civil. For those who can't, saying goodbye isn't that hard. None of them are so close they would be missed. I'm grateful for that.
Listening is key, which is hard for nearly everyone. I just wish more in my family were willing to listen to those who have different experiences from them. And that is why I keep writing, because stories matter.
The reality of now flavors my writing in some regards even if it is not a specific goal. Information about what goes on in the world and my beliefs about these circumstances are embedded in my mind - they bubble up in my writing and my comments to other posts.
These are crazy times; for me, it's impossible not to think and write about them. But is it impolite? Probably.
I try to cultivate a safe place as well; safety from judgment or cancellation. Not safe from certain topics.
Bill Maher always says he wants to go back to a time when we didn't discuss religion or politics, but I wonder if that's a good idea. We got along better, but by avoiding these topics for so long, maybe we've underdeveloped our ability to accept differing points of view with grace. Our reluctance to discuss these topics may be one reason why we're in such a quandary. We might need to do the hard thing; we might need to think our way out of this, together.
Good points. We really have gone for too long NOT talking about controversial topics with people we know.
I have no problem talking about politics or religion with people who understand the perils of a conversation like that, but most often we agree, and it turns into a bitch session.
I admit I rarely have to face such a conversation with an adversary. I see it as a waste of time to engage with people who aren't serious about the problem and aren't really looking for solutions, so I deliberately stay away from them. And they don't usually come looking for me, either!
Thank you for writing this. I haven't posted since July. It's not just because of politics. But I must admit, I'm right there with you on the sway my worry and emotional stress are causing. It's not the sway that is one party one day and another party the next. It's the sway of suffocating emotions that are titillating my nerves to such an extent that I'm feeling serious trauma.
I was a political science student at UC Berkeley during a time when UCLA was more radical. Berkeley was tame in the late 70s, early 80s. There was a little tiny field that was starting then that got me really energized. I felt it was my path. Political Psychology. However, the graduate program I wanted was at Yale, but the college and teacher I wanted was at Harvard. Once I experienced the terrifying but tantalizing concept of "freedom" this Sagittarian never went back to school. I study whatever I'm interested in, freely, on my own, without tests. Enough with authority that doesn't want to be there.
I'd been a student leader. I'd delegated before I knew what minimum wage was. I knew how to campaign and hated every minute of it. I was successful. Always the presidency. It wasn't like I was vice prez first, or secretary, or any other position prior. Always the presidency. As a young girl, I read about presidents. Recently seeing Ken Burn's new documentary U.S. and the Holocaust has traumatized me. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the holocaust. Not nearly enough obviously.
It surprised me when racism came front and center after Obama became president. I didn't think we had a racist problem. Oh, isolated bursts here and there, but not overall. What a wake-up call! My mom was a lifelong democrat. My dad was a republican who became a democrat because of Reagan.
I thought I would be the first woman president of the US. Then I interned on the hill in a program called Cal In The Capitol in the summer of 1981. I worked for an alcoholic congressman from Maryland. Within three weeks I realized in order to get anything done in DC one had to sell their soul. A Berkeley sister got to work for Dick Gregory that summer so I did see other slants than the office I worked in. But I realized then and there, I didn't want to sell my soul.
Now I feel responsible for what has happened. I was working on Political Psychology research on 3 Mile Island the summer I graduated. Looking in the Congressional Record I saw Jonathan Schell read pages from his book THE FATE OF THE EARTH. He was trying to convince the politicians, voted by the people of our country at the time, that nuclear winter was not survivable. I thought mankind would be wiped off the face of the earth before 2000. I was not going to bring a child into this mess.
I never saw this quagmire we are in as a futuristic possibility at the time. My favorite part of political psychology was psychobiography. As a leader, I really delved into what were my motivations for being a leader, and a politician. As a brilliant teacher on the ethics of power, Harold Laswell said, "All of us are born politicians. Most of us outgrow it."
I've outgrown it. When I saw the republicans who created the Lincoln Project I could feel my dad's earlier beliefs about politics coming to the fore. There is a responsible republican ideology and then there is what we are dealing with now, which is not responsible at all.
I could write for hours on this... but you really touched off the spark that is stymying my productivity. I didn't realize it because other health and friend issues have been easier and taking my time. Thank you for your bravery and sensitivity.
Wow, what a story! It looks like you have a goldmine of material whenever you decide it's time to get it out there. Fascinating. When you mentioned Ken Burns' 'Holocaust' it struck me that that may have been the catalyst for this piece. I don't know. There are so many triggers, and, as a woman, I take all of them personally. They really are out to get us.
I never wanted to be a politician, either, but I also never saw myself as a leader. I knew and worked with a lot of state and local politicians and the amount of phony gladhanding they were required to do was enough to turn me away forever.
I see a lot of criticism over the Lincoln Project, even among people whose opinions I value, and I don't understand it. I don't know how I would have gotten through the Trump years without them--and I'm a lifelong Democrat. But this is where we're at now. The divisions are handicapping us when we should be united in our ability to see through the bullshit and work together toward our common goal. Preserving an entire democracy is pretty important.
They can't win again. Too much is at stake. Yet the possibility that they might is giving me nightmares.
Thank you. I've never wavered in the past 7 years. The guy who got Fox News together was in the room when Nixon said, If we'd had a network of our own, this never would have happened. So much money is being made, and this keeps the war going. It's like the people in WWII who wanted to keep selling munitions to Germany and the Allies. The criticism of the Lincoln Project is because it makes sense. The LP cuts through the crazy. What causes me most concern is the laws republican state congresses have passed to make the numbers impossible. Why doesn't democracy mean anything anymore to the "conservatives?" Trump keeps telling his minority and the vocal percentage that the Democrats are destroying our country. He blames others for exactly what he's doing. I have a brother that did that and is a huge Trump fan. He drove both my folks crazy at the end of their lives. I just watched a Kanopy movie Kindertransports to Sweden. I'm trying not to take up too much space on your page. I had an experience at Dachau in 1980 during which I said, "If it was 40 years prior or 40 years in the future he'd have me up against the wall with a bullet aimed right between my eyes." I know what you are talking about. I've always said if world leaders would negotiate in a hot tub, things would be different. Pam Gregory said to focus on keeping your inner mind calm and confident that healing will take place. It's hard to understand that when there are those out there who want to take control and hang their enemies. Who would vote for that?
I forgot to mention how this guy explains it...
How Propaganda Works / Jason Stanley.
How Fascism Works: the Politics of Us and Them / Jason Stanley.
Thank you for writing this. We need honesty now more than ever. And, honestly, I have been using my writing to escape from the current fraught political environment. I try to do what I can when it comes to activism, but writing has been a sort of holy and safe space. Thanks again. I appreciate your posts.
There's nothing wrong with choosing your own writing platform and sticking with it. If opinions and advocacy aren't for you as a writer, then you must go on doing what you're doing. This is mainly for those who have doubts. I thought it was time to talk about it.
I’ll say some things:
I know you from your political writing, and your unapologetic liberalism is one thing that attracted me to you.
I don’t believe it serves us well to ignore politics. The only reason not to talk about politics or religion is because we are incurious beings who wish not to have our worldviews threatened or wish not to threaten those of other incurious beings. If we can approach each other with curiosity and a desire to understand instead of a desire to change someone and/or a sense that ours is only the right answer, we can talk about politics or religion and still maintain our friendships. But that assumes everyone is curious like me, and unfortunately they’re not.
As a writer, my writing has transitioned from being mostly about myself to being about people who identify with me in some way, and my intended audience has expanded as the impact of what I have to say has increased. My novel that was about a woman wanting to know what was going on in her body during pregnancy has turned into a speculative commentary of personal autonomy and our obligations to society. It wasn’t conscious, just a natural consequence of expanding my worldview and looking outward and inward - being published does a book no good, after all, if it only appeals to the author.
It always feels really trivial to me to write about celebrity scandals and ultra rich crypto investors and made-up island romances when our world is collapsing around us. So I guess writers can write what they write - the less consequential it is to our time and place, the less likely I am to want to read it.
"The only reason not to talk about politics or religion is because we are incurious beings who wish not to have our worldviews threatened or wish not to threaten those of other incurious beings. If we can approach each other with curiosity and a desire to understand instead of a desire to change someone and/or a sense that ours is only the right answer, we can talk about politics or religion and still maintain our friendships."
This is it almost exactly. Assuming we're talking to someone who also sees they don't have all the answers. I think those conversations are the most productive. And the rarest.
The idea that people can just ignore politics is ludicrous. Everything is political. Pretending to be apolitical is political too.
I try to be funny with my writing, but there's no way I could pretend current events don't influence how I think about the world. When I'm doing a satire piece it tends to be overtly political. But even if I'm writing something more generally humorous - like I did today about pro wrestling - it's impossible not to find parallels with our current economic and political landscape.
Bottom line: if people want to put their head in the sand, that's on them. Write on, Ramona.
I do know people who can ignore politics without a single thought about their place in our society and what has to happen to make it function. They 're takers instead of givers. Instead of helping to make it work they demand that other people make it work. And of course they're never satisfied. Hence the need to try someone new--especially a maverick who knows nothing about governing but is better at complaining than they are.
But that's another story!
My $.02: The beauty of voice is that it's yours. Anything else is inauthentic. Emote and opine as you wish! For every reader who leaves there is one who arrives. If your goal is to allow room for those with whom you disagree, someone whose fundamental truths are not in line with yours, your words will reflect that. Or not, as you choose. No right or wrong, just what is.
My mother lived to be 93. She was disappointed in me for leaning left. We couldn't have political discussions without one of us becoming annoyed with the other, but she continued to initiate the conversations all the same. I believe she wanted me to change my mind, and she hoped her comments would bring me around. As my parent, she saw it has her job to impress her ideals on me. Interestingly, though, she could talk with my older daughter without irritation. Something about the generational difference and the way my daughter spoke to her meant that they had real dialogue instead of arguments. They seldom agreed, but they were civil and, it seemed to me, open to hearing each others' opinions.
Yes, I write my feelings. I write (and read) about politics, and income disparity, and environmental decline, and race, and bodily autonomy and every other challenging topic. My essays aren't usually specifically about those things, but they're in there all the same because you I can't separate myself from them. I also bring them into face-to-face conversations, in an effort to teach myself how to listen for commonality. That's my voice.
I wonder if you'll find this as interesting as I did? https://bigthink.com/the-well/tribalism-humans-not-tribal/?
Keep doing what you're doing, Ramona. It's who you are, and lots of readers love you for it.
I love what you've written here. I posted another political piece on my second Substack, Constant Commoner, and crickets...again. I think I'll give up using it as a platform for my political pieces and pitch outside sources instead.
I used to publish a lot on Crooks and Liars, then stopped for some reason. I pitched a piece this week and they took it. I now have access to that venue, at least, whenever I want to vent!
I'm going to be looking for more. I have a voice, I have plenty to say, and I want it all to get out there.
I'm an introvert and Enneagram 1w9. My safest space for being the most honest with myself and others is my writing. It's my advocacy too. My blog is my safe space. And I've learned that it isn't necessarily safe, when those who have more power than me have questioned my faith or patriotism because I write what I see and I'm as honest as I can be about it. But I'm here with you and I'm thankful for writers like you who encourage me to keep speaking out.
P.S. I've discovered that social media (although I love Twitter and it's where I've found "my" people) doesn't allow me to get my voice out there because those in my life who I desperately want to read my words have blocked me out. So I guess I'll just keep writing here and hope that others share what I have to say.
Sorry I missed this, Sarah. I know what you mean about the people in our lives we want to get through to, but I look at what we do as far more important in the long run.
In the real world our opinions have a chance of making a real difference. Our voices reach a wider audience. It matters that what we have to say might influence people we don't know and don't know us. In turn, we have to listen to them. We couldn't do that by staying within our nuclear bounds.
I say this because, while some in my nuclear circle think far differently from me, we manage to stay civil. For those who can't, saying goodbye isn't that hard. None of them are so close they would be missed. I'm grateful for that.
Listening is key, which is hard for nearly everyone. I just wish more in my family were willing to listen to those who have different experiences from them. And that is why I keep writing, because stories matter.