The weight of it all
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
— John Adams, writing a letter to his wife, Abigail, in the year 1780. The American colonies were at war with Britain. John Adams was writing from Paris, France. He lamented that he didn’t have time to fully describe the architecture and art of the city.
Little did John Adams know … in the distant future, the people would be consumed less with porcelain and more with selfie sticks.
So it goes.
But we have reverted to a state of war. Actual war in Ukraine, bringing new fears of nuclear escalation. Cultural and political war in the United States, bringing a sense of identity crisis.
Who are we? What do we stand for?
Meanwhile, people are experiencing the modern world through disjointed channels. Every one of us, looking at personalized feeds of information. Advertisements targeting us better than we know ourselves.
Someone recently described (I forget the source) spending a few days immersed in the right-wing populist media bubble. This person finally understood how people actually believe the stuff many of us find unbelievable. There is an internal logic to it.
Different ideological groups inhabit different informational realities. No doubt a similar phenomenon could be observed in left-wing media bubbles.
Both Republicans and Democrats view the other side as “close-minded,” according to a Pew Research survey from 2019. A large majority of both Democrats and Republicans said we don’t agree on basic facts.
This adds to the heaviness of the moment because it feels like we’re not even arguing with each other, but rather fighting a war of information.
The Arizona Senate debate on Thursday was substantive but performative. In real time, soundbites and quotes from the candidates were distributed through their social media channels. There were substantive issues discussed — water, immigration, the economy, abortion, democracy — but the goal was to leave impressions and amplify talking points. The war in Ukraine never came up.
People talk about wanting “unity” but we will never see a time where our differences are settled. There never was such a time in the past. We are, in America, engaged in a never-ending argument. Indeed, this is how democracies function. Through conflict and struggle and strategy, some ideas emerge victorious. Hopefully better ideas emerge through criticism and debate. The key to democracy is that our differences are resolved peacefully, through an established process.
This constitutional order allows us to adapt to changing circumstances. If something about the process needs fixing, there is a means for amending the Constitution.
Change is hard to deal with. I’m still nostalgic for the 1990s.
Nothing is static. While we’ve done our best to isolate ourselves from nature via technology, we still inhabit a physical world that is constantly changing. We can either embrace this reality, fear it, or try to escape into the metaverse.
Theologian J.B Metz wrote,
All the great experiences of life — freedom, encounter, love, death — are worked out in the silent turbulence of an impoverished spirit.
The “spiritual poverty” described by Metz is the reality of living as finite beings in a mysterious universe.
The big difference today is the “silent” part.
It doesn’t exist for most people.
We’ve got the turbulence down, but not the silence.
I imagine John Adams sitting down by candlelight in Paris with paper and a pen. Near his desk, there is a stack of correspondence and some books.
His letter would take weeks — maybe months — to reach its destination.
Communication is much faster today, although I think everyone would agree there are certain things lost by the incessant pace of information. A loss of perspective. Or a sense of priorities. Or a sense of humor.
The best we can hope for, maybe, is to avoid nuclear annihilation and to leave the world a bit better than we found it.
