Challenging Defeatism in the Parking Lot and Online
Dear Friends,
Davis is a beautiful city in a temperate part of the country, so I try to walk everywhere I go. I enjoy the time with my wordless walking buddy, with the forests and greenbelts of south Davis, and with books on tape that edify and delight me. The people my son Jukie and I encounter on our walks uniformly greet us with friendly smiles.
Sometimes we end up in downtown Davis, stopping by the Davis Food Co-op or Upper Crust Bakery for a snack. The shoppers and especially the employees in these places are gracious and welcoming. Last week in the Co-op, a city leader saw that I was buying a mutual friend some necessities, and she quipped that “it takes a village” to extend the safety net to our fellow Davisites.
When I am driving, however, the other drivers in our village are not nearly as accommodating. Behind the wheel of a car, some of those kind people who might just have smiled while passing Jukie and me in the produce aisle will impatiently insist on exiting the parking lot before we do.
Somehow the time we spend behind the wheel can even change our personalities. As George Carlin says, “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”
Social media can have a similar effect on people online. Recently my wife Kate commented on an acquaintance’s Facebook post that, despite the lamentations she was reading there and elsewhere about America (this Facebook friend had moved out of the country), Kate was not ready to give in to cynicism or defeatism, no matter how dark things seem for civic discourse and democracy in the United States. Furthermore, Kate said, Most Americans care deeply and actually are paying attention to the recent Signal-Gate scandal, and that Americans are organizing and mobilizing, such as with the Hands Off! Sacramento Fights Back rally that happens this coming Saturday. Kate pointed out that at a time like this, cynicism and defeatism are unhelpful at best.
Like an otherwise kind supermarket shopper who had packed up her groceries and wanted to escape the parking lot, this friend did not take kindly to this differing perspective. Two friends meeting in person over crepes could have discussed their differences with patience and understanding, but this friend responded in ways that reflected the stress that we all feel.
To represent the Facebook wall exchange fairly, I would like to quote this friend’s response to Kate’s expressions of hope, resolve, and resistance, but I cannot, for the friend unfriended and blocked Kate, unfriended and blocked me, and then unsubscribed from my weekly newsletter on Substack.
When I searched for this friend’s name on Facebook, I came across my own post from a few years ago when I thanked her and others for contributing to Jukie Jones Duren Endowment in support of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. This friend also bought a copy of my first pub quiz book – feeling like Santa’s elves, Jukie and I delivered it to her Davis home just before Christmas. Her past kindness and care for us has manifested in many ways.
Now, I can see why this friend would feel dispirited and despairing about America. Social services programs of all sorts have been cut, thus alarming and traumatizing rural communities, low-income families, and the disabled. Public health and environmental safety have been threatened by the current administration’s deregulatory approach to governing, leaving billionaires and corporations to elevate financial concerns above the common good. Implemented and announced cuts to funding for scientific research, to colleges and universities, to library grants, and to the arts foundations represent an attack on American strengths and values. We have rapidly lost the respect of our allies, emboldened authoritarian regimes, and sowed discord at home, weakening trust in governmental and civic institutions.
About ten years ago, my youngest son Truman read his fortune cookie fortune to the family after dinner. It read, “How dark is dark?” The current answer: Opaque.
Nevertheless, I agree with Kate that we can still find cause for hope. Consider New Jersey Senator Cory Booker who, heroically, recently stood in the U.S. Senate chambers for 25 hours, speaking about the challenges I just listed, and including myriad examples from his constituents, many dealing with the challenges of caring for disabled children or parents.
Booker warned us about the erosion of democratic institutions, criticized the increasing influence of billionaires (and one billionaire in particular) in shaping American policy, and invoked the legacy and moral courage of civil rights leaders such as John Lewis, arguing that if he were alive today, Lewis would be making good trouble in response to the challenges caused by federal malfeasance and corruption. For 25 hours, without food or a bathroom break, Booker emphasized the need for all of us to practice vigilance to protect democracy, fairness, and the truth.
Like many in our cynical age, I found hope and encouragement in Booker’s earnest efforts to draw attention of distracted, apathetic, or forlorn Americans to these bedrock American values. Rather than giving into defeatism or dividing ourselves into camps according to our differing attitudes about or responses to our current slide towards dystopia, Booker offers himself and other American heroes whom he had platformed and amplified as embodiments of the spirit of resolve, resistance, and optimism that we and the world need.
I thank everyone who speaks out, mobilizes, organizes, and acts to confront authoritarianism, illiberalism, totalitarianism, censorship, and xenophobia in all their forms, including many local and faraway readers of this newsletter. May we find encouragement and resolve in our active and optimistic communities.
I stand with Robert F. Kennedy (Sr.), who, in his 1966 “Day of Affirmation” address in South Africa, spoke about individual actions against injustice. He said, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
May you feel those ripples of hope, and may they form an unstoppable wave that will wash away all our feelings of defeatism and despair.
The weather will be pleasant this evening, so I invite you to join me outside at Sudwerk tonight. On such days, I especially love hosting an outdoor Pub Quiz at sunset. I plan to move the quiz along quickly, entirely possible because it is only 722 words long, if you exclude the answers.
In addition to topics raised above, expect questions tonight on the following topics: Sacramento area retailers, switches, fresh water, rare onions, queens, painters, merchants, contracts, races, poets, warm animals, millionaires and billionaires, traps, space pilots, places that start with the letter B, simplistic months, second languages, mathematical spaces, parties likely to cause noise violations if they were to be held in Davis, counties with rivers, Moses, revelations from today’s newspaper, sizable paychecks, strategists, rich and poor countries, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 60 members now! Thanks especially to new subscribers Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of avocado. Thanks in particular to Ellen. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Three questions from last week:
- Books and Authors. Born in New Hampshire, what living novelist won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his script of the 1999 film adaptation of his novel The Cider House Rules?
- Film. Victor Fleming directed what 1939 fantasy film?
- Youth Culture. What TV show made the phrase “Chrissy, wake up!” and Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill” viral?
P.P.S. Poetry Night on April 3rd at 7 features Clarence Major!