The Best Lack All Conviction, Etc.

Black Book 113, May 9, 2023

What do we mean when we say something is revolting? I’ll get up and consult my Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, which is something I used to do at least a half dozen times a week, but probably haven’t done in the last year.

Revolting: Disgusting, shocking, offensive; nauseating (“Revolting cant about the duty of obedience and the wickedness of resistance to law”—Henry Adams).

To revolt, then, would then seem to be an appropriate response to being revolted, or to finding a situation revolting: To rise in repugnance against something. To roll (volutare), to revolve, or to turn. Turn away or turn against.

Also, revolution. Again, to revolve, to revolt.

Unquestionably, we are living in revolting times, yet with few signs of revolting, or revolt, or revolution. In the history of the world, how often has a country endured such revolting inequality and injustice, such wholesale abuses of wealth and power, without rising up in revolt? Everything about our current situation is ripe for revolution, but there are no signs that it could ever happen here—or happen for the right reasons. By ‘right reasons’ I mean an insurrection or acts of righteous sedition instigated by the oppressed, the powerless.

The ‘best’ (most comfortable) truly lack all conviction, the worst are certainly full of something at least resembling passionate intensity, and the poor are truly powerless, and mostly too preoccupied with survival to effectively revolt for their basic human rights and dignity. I wonder if the genuinely revolutionary times in world history were preceded by outbreaks of violent crime motivated by real revolutionary or idealistic intent. And I wonder if the cosplay insurrection of January 6th—all the sound and fury of a real revolution, but motivated by nothing but cartoonish conspiracies—presented such a bad look and met with such pushback from the judiciary that it gave revolution a bad name; if, in other words, the Right has co-opted and sullied the idea of protest and revolt, just as it has co-opted and made embarrassing (to many sane, principled people) the symbol of the flag, the very idea of patriotism, and purported religious faith.

Forty years ago I personally knew hundreds of people who were willing to protest and go to jail for something they believed in, but those sorts of loud, angry protests don’t seem to happen anymore unless a) police kill yet another unarmed Black citizen, or b) a criminal billionaire with a long history of corruption and sexual assault fails to win reelection.

American eruptions are now situational and short-lived, relatively brief responses to provocations, but nobody seems to be able to sustain the level of large, organized protest that can truly shut things down and force the local and national people in power to address systemic abuses and failures. History says that the oppressed and marginalized will inevitably rise up and unleash the kind of chaos that results in the overthrow of the people in power, but with America’s massive investment in both the military and the militarization of law enforcement, maybe they’ve actually succeeded in creating a bulwark against revolution.

Still, we shouldn’t be able to just shake off so much of the shit we’re living with, and through. This is our world. And whether we recognize it or not, these things that are happening are happening to all of us; they affect our quality of life, our security, our futures, and the futures of our children.

I recognize that I’m fully complicit in the ongoing American epidemic of oblivion, but we all should have learned by now how class warfare and trickle-down economics really work; inequality and injustice seep down into all of our lives, our neighborhoods, our communities. We can, of course, choose oblivion, can try to look the other way at the homelessness, hunger, addiction, mental illness, crime, and despair that are now a regular and growing feature of life in our cities, and even in out-of-the-way places in this country.

We can ignore the daily gauntlet of panhandlers and the endlessly recurring sidewalk dramas of the afflicted and marginalized among us. We can go out of our way to avoid the sprawling and ceaselessly replicating encampments of the homeless. We can express our alarm at rising crime, venting on the internet pages of neighborhood watch groups. We can ignore the rising rents and property values that are effectively shutting down the future dreams of a generation of young people; ignore the egregious and escalating predations and desecrations of the billionaire (and millionaire) class, their refusal to adhere to anything resembling a social contract, their obscene hoarding of wealth and property, their growing insistence on living in the alternate reality of private communities and clubs.

We can indulge our fascination with and hero worship of celebrities and the wealthy, can participate in the uncritical celebration of a “foodie” culture, the economic model of which excludes 90% of humanity, here and elsewhere. We can spend unfathomable amounts of money on craft beers and cocktails. We can unquestioningly and uncomplainingly spend hundreds of dollars on tickets to concerts and sporting events, further enriching musicians, athletes, owners, and promoters who are already wealthy beyond any person’s wildest dreams.

We can ignore gun violence, homicide by law enforcement, the hopeless decline of political and judicial systems, the slow death of real journalism and cultural literacy, and all the terrifying shit that’s going on elsewhere in the world. We can ignore global warming/climate change, literally refuse to do anything about it or make any sacrifices despite the fact—the fact!—that the temperatures in the oceans are breaking records every year and pretty much every place in the country is smashing records for high temperatures.

I guess one could be forgiven for concluding that most of us just really don’t give a shit about anything other than consumption and burning money.

I’m always trying to figure out what it would take to get many of my so-called liberal friends in Minnesota to go out into the streets every day and make some real noise.

I actually think I know the answer to that: A Vikings Super Bowl victory. Or maybe Prince could die a second time.