AN INCONVENIENT IRONY

It feels as though we are all turning a corner, right? New jobless claims are below 700k in the U.S., the young have begun to receive their vaccines, and in Brexit Britain, the government prepares to provide vaccines to the Europe supposedly left behind. Nothing (even pessimism) is written in stone, as they say.

In school, I remember being taught that one can drift so far to the left that one finds oneself in the territory of the right… and vice versa. Woe behold those in the centre. Common sense has been deemed indecisive at best and cowardice at worst in 2021.

Irony is employed most commonly by nations that have spent centuries developing an unspoken language. In a land of immigrants, irony is not productive; lack of a common cultural history leads to unintended missteps and misunderstandings. Plain Speaking is the most direct route to peaceful resolution in America. In other countries, a ‘wink and a nod’ does the trick.

The irony that both have embraced the cruel post-truth world with equal vigour is apparently lost on conservatives and liberals. ‘Alternative Facts’ and ‘My Truth’ are flip sides of the same coin. Both leave no room for debate. I am right/the victim, and everyone else is a liar.

How remarkable it is that we have so quickly reached the next stage of human evolution, in which many of those who identify as either conservative or liberal can now see into the hearts and minds of their fellow humans. Where does that leave unenlightened centrists? In the dark, I suppose.