Beautiful stuff, Elias. I certainly ascribe to the notion that we as a nation have not been able adequately to mourn the losses of the Covid pandemic. I also agree that wars of recent memory, all in the 2000s, are of a different nature, requiring yet a different kind of lamentation. I am finally of the opinion that this has been going on since Reagan, who began the process of rewriting history that is only now seeing its full flowering under the Trump regime.
I find rich and sensitive reflections here on your experiences at three places where public grief is encouraged or suppressed. I've never been to a Tenebrae service. I think the participation in creating the "earthquake" there would often be powerful, almost like the rage generated at some public funerals that regimes sometimes try to abort.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece, Elias. I'm dubious about grief as the origin and engine of Trumpism except perhaps in one sense: the grief that many white men, and especially older white men (like me) have experienced in having to witness the cultural and electoral ascendancy of women and people of color. I mean, I've participated in the decline of the middle class. I was locked up like everyone else during COVID. My son served two combat tours in Iraq and now lives on with a 40% disability. But I never contemplated supporting Trump for a moment. Nor have I felt any kind of resentment toward the phantom "elites" Trumpists are always going on about. Sure, we were never farmers, but then neither were the people who assaulted the Capitol on January 6. For the most part they flew into town, stayed at hotels in the District, and were realtors, contractors, law enforcement officers, and other middle class professions. Very few farmers. So, I think this is all about racial resentment at bottom. I think Obama's presidency constituted a five-alarm fire for the racial revanchist right, and they would rather burn the whole thing to the ground than suffer the indignity of another Negro in the White House.
Happy you took a look at the piece, Mark. As someone who attended a segregated high school in deep East Texas, I not only saw racism up-close but I know quite a few Trump supporters, however reluctant they may be. Example: my niece and her family who have adopted two very Black Congolese orphans. I've come to see that what you're calling racial resentment is part of the picture--but I think there's much more. Obama is seen as more than Black--he's a symbol of classist condescension, the guys that invented NAFTA so they could get rich.
Related here is Wendell Berry's excellent new book about the loss of rural culture in general--which means more than farming, of course. It means a national landscape of hollowed-out small cities and towns. How grievous is the loss of an entire way of life?
The Jan. 6 crowd were indeed middle class folk but they were several hundred political opportunists and hotheads. If we want to claim the 74 million who voted for Trump in 2020 were simply racist, then we let the extractive neoliberal system--regardless of race--off the hook. Arlie Hochschild's new book, Stolen Pride, is good on this. All those opioid deaths of despair were about something we refuse to see, because it impacted people whose lives and fates we've agreed to scorn publicly for almost a half century now. If they're all racists, then they can't be our neighbors and we're free to hate them. I'm with Wendell on this one! :)
Beautiful stuff, Elias. I certainly ascribe to the notion that we as a nation have not been able adequately to mourn the losses of the Covid pandemic. I also agree that wars of recent memory, all in the 2000s, are of a different nature, requiring yet a different kind of lamentation. I am finally of the opinion that this has been going on since Reagan, who began the process of rewriting history that is only now seeing its full flowering under the Trump regime.
I value your good words, brother!
I find rich and sensitive reflections here on your experiences at three places where public grief is encouraged or suppressed. I've never been to a Tenebrae service. I think the participation in creating the "earthquake" there would often be powerful, almost like the rage generated at some public funerals that regimes sometimes try to abort.
All sorts of churches hold Tenebrae services now but you need an old Polish Catholic place to really get the “weird Catholicism” vibe.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece, Elias. I'm dubious about grief as the origin and engine of Trumpism except perhaps in one sense: the grief that many white men, and especially older white men (like me) have experienced in having to witness the cultural and electoral ascendancy of women and people of color. I mean, I've participated in the decline of the middle class. I was locked up like everyone else during COVID. My son served two combat tours in Iraq and now lives on with a 40% disability. But I never contemplated supporting Trump for a moment. Nor have I felt any kind of resentment toward the phantom "elites" Trumpists are always going on about. Sure, we were never farmers, but then neither were the people who assaulted the Capitol on January 6. For the most part they flew into town, stayed at hotels in the District, and were realtors, contractors, law enforcement officers, and other middle class professions. Very few farmers. So, I think this is all about racial resentment at bottom. I think Obama's presidency constituted a five-alarm fire for the racial revanchist right, and they would rather burn the whole thing to the ground than suffer the indignity of another Negro in the White House.
Happy you took a look at the piece, Mark. As someone who attended a segregated high school in deep East Texas, I not only saw racism up-close but I know quite a few Trump supporters, however reluctant they may be. Example: my niece and her family who have adopted two very Black Congolese orphans. I've come to see that what you're calling racial resentment is part of the picture--but I think there's much more. Obama is seen as more than Black--he's a symbol of classist condescension, the guys that invented NAFTA so they could get rich.
Related here is Wendell Berry's excellent new book about the loss of rural culture in general--which means more than farming, of course. It means a national landscape of hollowed-out small cities and towns. How grievous is the loss of an entire way of life?
The Jan. 6 crowd were indeed middle class folk but they were several hundred political opportunists and hotheads. If we want to claim the 74 million who voted for Trump in 2020 were simply racist, then we let the extractive neoliberal system--regardless of race--off the hook. Arlie Hochschild's new book, Stolen Pride, is good on this. All those opioid deaths of despair were about something we refuse to see, because it impacted people whose lives and fates we've agreed to scorn publicly for almost a half century now. If they're all racists, then they can't be our neighbors and we're free to hate them. I'm with Wendell on this one! :)
Wonderful exploration of grieving as an act of love and the sacredness of the full round of life. Thanks Elias
Very beautiful, Elias.
Post helene we are only beginning to get in touch with our grief