Searching for my immigrant father’s story, I stumbled on the very moment his American dream took root. What I wonder now is: Did he really believe in the myth of a land without fascism?
Great essay, and I appreciate the reference to The Fall. It is a bit of an overstatement to say "the times have never been more uncertain than now." Just looking at modern history, 1938-1944 is hard to top. The Third Reich and Imperial Japan had a pretty good shot at taking over the world, and the Nazis certainly had their supporters in the USA. The sudden collapse of the seemingly stable world order in 1914 , leading to unprecedented numbers of battlefield deaths in a world war, immediately followed by a global pandemic, is probably up there, too. Chaos and uncertainty is the norm, going back to antiquity. You and I have been lucky to have lived during periods of relative calm – though this is not one of those periods...
Thank you for that! According to Substack's published stats, referencing The Fall leads to a .0000006% increase or decrease in engagement. As for the overstatement bit, I can't really dispute that, but the issue may actually be poor construction and reasoning on my part. I was trying to reference the potential consequences, specifically that prior to 1945, we humans lacked truly planet-altering / species-ending inputs. At the moment, I'm wondering which one of them will "win" the race--the climatological ones or the thermonuclear ones. Not to go dark or anything....
Great essay, and I appreciate the reference to The Fall. It is a bit of an overstatement to say "the times have never been more uncertain than now." Just looking at modern history, 1938-1944 is hard to top. The Third Reich and Imperial Japan had a pretty good shot at taking over the world, and the Nazis certainly had their supporters in the USA. The sudden collapse of the seemingly stable world order in 1914 , leading to unprecedented numbers of battlefield deaths in a world war, immediately followed by a global pandemic, is probably up there, too. Chaos and uncertainty is the norm, going back to antiquity. You and I have been lucky to have lived during periods of relative calm – though this is not one of those periods...
Thank you for that! According to Substack's published stats, referencing The Fall leads to a .0000006% increase or decrease in engagement. As for the overstatement bit, I can't really dispute that, but the issue may actually be poor construction and reasoning on my part. I was trying to reference the potential consequences, specifically that prior to 1945, we humans lacked truly planet-altering / species-ending inputs. At the moment, I'm wondering which one of them will "win" the race--the climatological ones or the thermonuclear ones. Not to go dark or anything....
Death by what the war planners euphemistically call "a nuclear exchange" might be preferable to some of the other options on the table right now.
We agree to agree. Also: Ugh.
Sobering.