Acceptance (doesn’t equal) Acquiescence

Here’s my latest piece for Arthur magazine:

http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1451

I’ve been debating for a while about whether to do this. Whether to come right out and say it. On a certain level, it’s like shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. What good is it to announce a problem if I don’t have a ready solution at hand? Furthermore, what if sharing this information – this perspective on our predicament – simply exacerbates our paralysis to do anything about it. I mean, fascism breeds best in populations that have been stunned into complacency, cynicism, or despair.

(That’s called a “buried lede” – a publishing term for hiding the main idea of a story deep within a paragraph. Editors don’t like it because it makes it hard for the reader to figure out what an article is about. But I felt it necessary because, well, I’m not quite comfortable talking about it too directly, just yet. This fascism stuff.)

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