Imbolc \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Hare Moon<\/p>\n
Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, is a thoughtful conservative. \u00a0So is D.J. Tice, editorial writer for the Star-Tribune, though Tice often sets my kettle to boil. \u00a0Both had interesting pieces in their respective papers today, Douthat on individualism<\/a> and the millennials, Tice on entitlement reform<\/a> and the baby boom.<\/p>\n Tice writes as a baby boomer and asks us for another shot at society wide influence by seeking and seeing implemented reforms to both Social Security and Medicare. \u00a0I agree with him. \u00a0We need to solve this issue now, as the largest cohort to enter the python is only a fraction of the way in. \u00a0It is our responsibility to demand sensible changes and that our representatives in congress and the White House enact them.<\/p>\n What are they? \u00a0I don’t know the arguments right now well enough to recommend, but I know such arguments exist and I would stand with the fiscally responsible ones. \u00a0Tice and I agree this time. \u00a0I also appreciate his writing as a baby boomer and as one who calls for action.<\/p>\n Douthat read this Pew report on the millennials<\/a>\u00a0and concluded (though you have to read between his weasel words) that civilization as we know it is doomed. \u00a0This is a favorite conservative argument when societal trends point toward things they don’t like, in this instance, more individualism.<\/p>\n I don’t agree with Douthat. \u00a0Conservatives like to place individualism as an ethos over against communitarianism, the former eroding the latter until we’re all small, armed, loosely affiliated gangs. \u00a0The reality is much more complicated. \u00a0Individualism does not go over against communitarianism.<\/p>\n As an existentialist I believe we are each in this world alone, that our individuality is inescapable and incapable of being increased by any sort of belief or action. \u00a0Individualism is a definition of what it means to be human. \u00a0As an existentialist, I also know that we can recognize the remarkable affinity we share with others of our species. \u00a0And more, with a land ethic like Aldo Leopolds, we can recognize and act on the remarkable affinity we share with all of the natural world, animate and inanimate. \u00a0We are, after all, stardust.<\/p>\n Thus, the signal act of the aware universe (that is, you and me), is to bridge the abyss between the depths of one person and that of others, to acknowledge our solidarity as a creature aware of its own death. \u00a0We are all, as Camus said, in the river rushing toward our end, and we are in the river together. \u00a0It is this common bond we share that makes us compassionate toward the other and makes us want to ease their burdens in this one lifetime.<\/p>\n Now, here’s what’s really interesting in both of these columnist’s pieces today. \u00a0Both invoke a future disaster, one fiscal and the other communitarian, but both leave out the certain calamity that requires our action now, our action as a global community: mitigation and adaptation to climate change. \u00a0They both speak for the future, yet it is the heat and the storms and the floods and the rising oceans that reach from that future with the most destructive force.<\/p>\n Granted we have to multi-task, communities and nations can do that, though it’s very difficult for individuals. \u00a0But to bemoan the future without acknowledging the carbon in our atmosphere (so to speak) will only ensure a time in which individuals and poor old people will burn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imbolc \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Hare Moon Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, is a thoughtful conservative. \u00a0So is D.J. Tice, editorial writer for the Star-Tribune, … Continue reading Burned<\/span>