1 Comment
⭠ Return to thread

Here's an old passage that is still relevant when thinking about how to survive under Trump. When Poland was 'liberated' from the Nazis by Russia a new authoritarianism took hold. Poet/writer Czeslaw Milosz observed the responses of his countrymen to the new regime -- adopt fully, go along to get along, or resist. Of himself, he wrote ...

"My own decision proceeded, not from a functioning of the reasoning mind, but from a revolt of the stomach. A man may persuade himself, by the most logical reasoning, that he may greatly benefit his health by swallowing live frogs; and, thus rationally convinced, he may swallow a first frog, then a second; but at the third his stomach will revolt. In the same way, the growing influence of [Russian rule permeating culture as well as government] on my way of thinking came up against the resistance of my whole nature."

-- The Captive Mind (1951)

With Trump, I am at the puking frogs stage.

Expand full comment