It's amazing how doable the paper seemed once I came to the epiphany this morning that I will only be doing the first half of this project. Part one is about punching Nazis in Portland. Part two, yet to be written, is about the false flag politics by some Democratic activists in Alabama.
My brain is toast, of course. But I did want to share a bit from Rebecca Traister's Good and Mad:
The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018):
Anger at injustice and inequality is in many ways exactly like fuel. A necessary accelerant, it can drive—on some level must drive—noble and difficult crusades. But it is also combustible, explosive; its power can be unpredictable and can burn. (xxiii)I recognize my selecting the one anger-cautionary quote from a book praising the power of women's anger is, well, a very male thing to do. Nevertheless, I really like the notion of anger as a fuel--powerful but explosive. I made a similar argument in the thing I just wrote about certainty, especially what Amy Olberding refers to as a kind of performative certainty you see in online exchanges. You signal how deeply and fiercely you believe a thing (usually over and against some other group that doesn't believe this). Then you judge anyone who fails to match your level and direction of certainty as bad. Your certainty becomes a litmus test for others' orthodoxy. This in turn reminds me of Eugene Peterson's quote about religion as the force that sanctions "anything goes."
I'm idea-dumping. The mechanism of my writer-brain is falling apart, and I'm leaking loose ideas.
Bedtime, in other words. Of that I am certain!
More tomorrow,
John
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