The first day of the second trinity of Holly Days is Hope. Hard to feel that right now; ironic that it was Obama’s catchword, and that so many of us feel it leaving along with him. But there is always hope, no matter how dark things seem, and they may, in expectation, feel a lot darker than they will turn out, certainly in the long run. As he said, “We zig and zag and sometimes we move in ways that some people think is forward and others think is moving back, and that’s OK.”
And it is. When I was sitting alone in a restaurant reading (a common joy for single old farts) Steven Pinker’s amazing Better Angels of or Nature: Why Violence has Declined, servers would often asked what it was about, and when would give a quick synopsis, the most common reply was to deny it – to argue, often vigorously, how bad things really are, how much worse they’re getting, how we are, in reality on an existential precipice. And of course we are on that precipice; a life is so achingly fragile, yet life itself seems almost indestructible, and moral progress nearly unstoppable.
I think we tend to the negative and pessimistic partly out of its power to draw us to each others’ aid, the way sadness saved little Riley in Inside Out. Partly, as a corollary, due to the way catastrophizing can be a powerful political tool: a call to action. And it was just such a message of catastrophe that lead to this change of guard, and a similar but opposite and dismal call to arms that resists it.
But look where we ended up after that nightmarish cycle of world wars in the last century. Look at our warm relations with our former enemies. Ever notice that whenever two guys get in a fist fight, their friends always try to break it up. Evil is almost by definition that which must be resisted, destroyed. Every negative result is a clue to a better answer; progress is charted in trials and errors.
We may well be sorely tried, but we will correct the errors and be stronger for it on the other side. It doesn’t mean it wont hurt, but neither does it mean we should abandon hope.
Happy Holly Days.
HOLLY DAYS 