You may have noticed that my posting here on Continuations has been sporadic at best these past few weeks. The reason is simple. I have felt downbeat by what’s been happening in the world and the United States. The rolling back of democracy across the globe in favor or populist authoritarians is depressing. I am asking myself how I will judge in the future what I did personally to try and stop it. And for now I am not happy with the answer.
I grew up in Germany at a time when many young people were questioning what their parents (or in my case my grandparents, as my parents were too young) did during the rise and rule of Hitler and the Nazi party. Did they oppose it? Did they support it? Did they ignore it? As I watch what is happening now, I am thinking that the ignore option is the most dangerous. You are busy building your business, doing your job, studying your subject, or whatever it is that is your primary focus. You feel you don’t have the time, or that it won’t be that bad, or that others will stand up and so you don’t need to.
But it that very attitude of ignoring what is happening that let’s terrible things occur. These days I am constantly thinking of the Edmund Burke quote:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.”
I don’t yet know what it is that I can do and will do. So far it has been the occasional posts warning about the rise of Trump and calling for a defense of democracy. But this feels by far too little and too complacent. It feels like I am still doing nothing. I don’t know what it is that I can and should do and that has me down.
