Was any part of it sane?
I’d forgotten how deeply restful the Biden presidency was: weeks passed—months, even—when nothing seemed to happen except for the pandemic slowly disappearing, the economy teetering but recovering, civility gradually dawning after a very black night indeed. At least, that’s what I thought was happening. I had no idea that things were so deeply terrible that a Trump second presidency would seem like a good idea to even the most crazed.
Six months of this presidency has taught us a lot. The fascism is here, although it’s taking CNN and most major news outlets a long time indeed to get their heads around the fact. They’re still wondering whether we might be, well, approaching a constitutional crisis.
Dudes, we drove through that town a long time ago.
Things in the United States in 2024 were apparently terrible, and who knew? My frame of reference was Germany after World War I, and who would have thought I’d be making excuses for the Germans? But I remember the reels they showed me in History class (no idea whether that word “history” should be capped, but in a Trumpian world, it should be). Inflation was so bad that people were using wheelbarrows to go out to buy their daily bread. They were burning bank notes for fuel, to keep warm. They were even using bank notes as wall paper. Maybe it’s fake news, but I saw photos of all this before anybody had a computer, much less Photoshop.
I get it—I learned a while ago that you should never mess with people’s rice and beans. Or daily bread. But was it really so bad for people in the states that they had to elect a dictator, and someone who made no bones about it?
He told us exactly what he’d do, and we didn’t believe him, or so I thought. Because I had this mistaken idea that the American public was misinformed. I thought Fox News had poisoned the well. I assumed ignorance, not ill will.
So no, I decided. Things weren’t so bad that a dictator was needed, and people knew perfectly well what Trump was, what he had done, and what he would do. People were pissed (because he had made them so) and they hated the people Trump hated. People like me—who assume good will, generally.
Do I?
Yeah—think so.
I was in a dangerous place, as I still am. Because I cannot hate Trump—there’s just too much pathology to overlook. I don’t hate drunks either (how could I?). But they’re still dangerous.
At this point, I gave in to despair. And I thought how reassuring, on one level, it is to live in historically fraught times. The guy guiding his wheelbarrow full of worthless cash is at least doingsomething—horrifying and outrageous as it is. He’s scrambling, just the way we all did after Hurricane Maria. It was a blissful life, though we couldn’t fully see it at the time. We had left our 21st century lives and become hunter / gatherers. True, we were looking for cans of tuna fish and D batteries, but once that was done, we could rest easy.
I told myself that in a situation so completely fucked up, when the possibility of doing anything is well below zero—well, I might as well go to the beach. Why not—my marriage is over, my country is gone.
If I go to bed sober and haven’t made anyone’s life demonstrably worse—well, what else do I have to do?
I tell myself I can write.
I tell myself that writing is useless…and it is.
But then?
I am now living in the space between my ears, and it’s hell. Because I cannot do anything that would make me feel good, for God’s sake. But I have to do something, because it’s driving me crazy.
Into this excruciating indecision comes the memory of a poem that I once read by one of those extraordinary British guys who beavered away and did extraordinary things. I knew that he had worked as a translator for every Oriental text (Japanese or Chinese) from Tale of Genji to the Little Red Book of Mao. I knew that he had worked a civil service job, during World War II. I knew a lot about the guy, including that he had written this really great poem.
It took me hours or searching, and was it worth it? No—but it was no worse than anything else I might have done.
And I was right—or at least I think I am. The guy’s name is Arthur Waley, and the poem is called Censorship.
You decide.
Censorship
Arthur Waley
I have been a censor for fifteen months;
The building where I work has four times been bombed.
Glass, boards and paper, each in turn,
Have been blasted from the windows -- where windows are left at all.
It is not easy to wash, keep warm and eat;
At times we lack gas, water or light.
The rules for censors are difficult to keep;
In six months there were over a thousand 'stops'.
The Air-Raid Bible alters from day to day;
Official orders are not clearly expressed.
One may mention Harrods, but not Derry and Toms;
One may write of mist, but may not write of rain.
Japanese, scribbled on thin paper
In faint scrawl tires the eyes to read.
In a small room with ten telephones
And a tape-machine concentration is hard.
Yet the Blue Pencil is a mere toy to wield,
There are worse knots than the tangles of Red Tape.
It is not difficult to censor foreign news,
What is hard today is to censor one's own thoughts --
To sit by and see the blind man
On the sightless horse, riding in to the bottomless abyss.
