A number of the most serious questions of all are coming up all at once. I'm trying to get you to think seriously about them, and I'm greatly encouraged to see that Thomas &c. are trying to do so. This is good. Be patient with each other as we do it. These decisions are critical, and we only get one shot at them. Let's talk about them, as we have been, in mutual respect and due honor. It's a hard moment. You're all doing well. Even if we get it right it may all go wrong. Strength and honor.
Thank you. I have been reading but not commenting, because 1) I’m not entirely certain how best to put my arguments into words, and 2) I prefer not to accidentally wade into other people’s debates. I don’t want to pour fuel on a fire without meaning to.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
As for me, if I want to have a private debate with Grim, I'll email him. In this case, I've been thinking about this some and wanted to put my ideas out there to see what people thought, so, the more the merrier.
DeleteSomething went wrong with the "Boundaries" post.
ReplyDeleteIs that a subtle way of suggesting we've gone too far? :-)
DeleteMy concern is that I have, or that under the present circumstances my ability to maintain proper boundaries may be weakening.
DeleteI deleted that post. I decided I didn’t want to discuss it. My wife is on my side , which suffices.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. She's certainly the most important one to have on your side, maybe the only important one.
DeleteYes, as long as she remains on my side I will continue. Whenever she’s not, I reconsider.
Delete"Even if we get it right it may all go wrong."
ReplyDeleteI have been intrigued for a long time by the Generational Change theories popularized in the 1990s by a number of writers, specifically for me Strauss and Howe's books. I certainly may be guilty of exercising confirmation bias but they seem remarkably prescient in predicting not so much events as the way we have reacted to those events. In the early 1950s Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate Harry Truman and wounded five Congressmen in an attack on the House of Representatives but unless you listen to The History Guy you probably haven't heard of either incident, and while given fairly length sentences they were all released by the 1990s. Contrast that to the reactions to the January 6 riot and Trump's attempted assassination. One of the things they talk about is the result of a crisis period is usually far different from the wishes or projections made before it resolves even if it appears to logically flow from the events of the crisis in hindsight. I doubt many people in 1938 could have correctly predicted the status of the United States in 1968. The America of the 2030s will be a far different place for those of us who live to see it and probably nothing like what we would imagine it to be, for good or ill.
Paul Graham, a very insightful guy (with whom I often disagree) has reposted an interesting essay from 2016: The Refragmentation
ReplyDeletehttps://paulgraham.com/re.html
In a nutshell: "the cause (of America's current fragmentation) is not some force that's pulling us apart, but rather the erosion of forces that had been pushing us together. Worse still, for those who worry about these trends, the forces that were pushing us together were an anomaly, a one-time combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be repeated — and indeed, that we would not want to repeat."
The two forces were war (above all World War II), and the rise of large corporations.
I deleted that post.
ReplyDeleteI understand your reasoning for deleting it, and I agree with you. But I would have offered an alternative response: "You make it extremely difficult to underestimate you."
Separately, a mechanical question. That post was up, and then it was gone without a trace of ever having been there, not even a "deleted by author" notice. Is that a power that's unique to your status as the owner/publisher of this blog?
Eric Hines
Ok, so, I don’t quite know. AVI has a widget that captures that I posted something, and a few lines of it as a preview. I can’t affect that. All I did to delete it was to go to Blogger and delete it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it’s just that it’s January, and I’m not getting to ride much. Maybe it’s that the world is accelerating to conflict and I am questioning whether I am doing the right things. I’m not quite sure. But I am relying on my poor wife more, and I very greatly appreciate your collective friendship.
This is some of what friends do.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I think you're on the right track. "Keep your powder dry" does not mean start banging away.
Eric Hines
And what wives and husbands do, too, come to that.
DeleteEric Hines