Today for Rewind Wednesday, we look at the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, and reflect on how little has changed in the last 100 years.
Democratic states always struggle with competing priorities during warβin part, because our societies are much more conservative than some of us like to think.
War brings the ugliest parts of our social contract to the fore, and leaves deep civic wounds in its wake.
#Humanism #Democracy #War
https://mlclark.substack.com/p/democracy-and-the-wartime-state
I find your pieces really challenging. It's akin to seeing something from 360ΒΊ all at once, something of a mind stretching quality to it.
Well that explains the screaming inside my own, I guess!
Seriously, though--
That's super kind to say, but it also hits on something I always watch out for:
When you write in a more holistic way like this, it's easy to think you're actually able to step outside the system.
Many writers put on airs because they think they're "rising above the madding crowd" with their words--but none of us can. Best we can do is try to describe the whole from within.
(And screw up. And try again. π€π»)
Ha! Careful there. From personal experience, life feels super small when one stumbles out of the set story path.
At such times, I find it helps to go look at the stars and remember that there is no greater plan--that the rest of the universe doesn't give a hoot what's happening on this pale blue dot.
So what's left for us? Well, mostly stumbling from one human-generated story of society to another, and trying to live with care wherever we can.
Anything else is just getting greedy. π
Nah, I wasn't advocating for it, rather pointing out the futility of it. I get those starβgazing moments; sometimes just looking at nature will do it, or feeling the roots of a massive tree in my legs as if they were connected. Oh wait, that was my acid flashback. Never mind. π
@MLClark
It does get a little disorientating coming in with the usual mindset of set pieces that have a beginning, path and conclusion β¦ But life really isn't like that, is it? It's a fantasy we afford ourselves in order to believe that a change is easily possible, that there's some kind of answer or secret key to unlock all this dreck we're up to our necks in β¦