Don't Stand So Close To Me

What if humans in the western world were to go through this period of detox and learn they didn't have to go shopping every day? What if they learned there was more to life than work? What if they found they could exist without flying or going on cruises? Spending time with the kids. Listening to music that is not in the background. Taking the time to cook something really nice.

In one sense these are signs of privilege, of not having too much stress about finding the necessities to get from one day to the next. But they are also reminders there is more to life than the grind. The leap happens when people begin questioning the grind; why it exists, who is benefiting, how did it come to be?

In another sense, there has always been a general suspicion of modernity writ large, of "everything solid turned to air, of everything sacred profaned". It is important to remember that often there is a romantic, nostalgic disavowal often associated with this sentiment, a vague (usually provincial) remembrance of a time when life was slower, better, more meaningful, less modern.All too often this is combined with a love of private property, traditional social hierarchies and a yearning for a White past.

What if? Might happen, could happen, a possibility of, we don't know...This is the language of speculation. Taking limited data and extrapolating, modeling. My approach to assessing the radicalizing potential of this crisis is like my approach to a trout stream. Even though I have been fishing for sixty years (guiding others for 35) I still stand by the stream and watch and wait for five minutes before I attach a fly to the line. Many see fish feeding, rush out with any old fly and waste precious time flailing. But there is a phenomenon in flyfishing called a complex hatch, where multiple aquatic insects are hatching at once. We often see the largest or most prolific of these and assume that must be what the trout are feeding on. But it isn't necessarily so.

This isn't to say intuition or past experience play no role. Nor are my observations always 100% correct. I flail with the best.But fewer assumptions and a little bit of patient watching have served me well...when fishing.