Last Saturday, at EFNY, Richard and I were talking about avoiding the news. The news is so bad lately, we agreed, that it was time to just stop reading it altogether. If there's anyone I would put toward the bottom of the list of people who would stop reading the news, it's former political operative Richard. That he came to the same decision as I did helped me come to terms with it.
I decided several weeks ago, actually, that it was time to wean myself of current events. I've stopped reading the New York Times -- the front section, at any rate. I've stopped reading political blogs. So long, Eschaton. It's not to say that I'm going to completely insulate myself from the world. I will of course keep reading Big Ink and Ennis' posts on Sepia Mutiny and all our friends' blogs many of which cover politics. And certainly, my fellow Ishers are free to post about politics and the news here. I am just no longer taking responsibility for what goes on in the world.
It's a strange thing to think about. Political involvement has been part of my identity for a good twenty years. Ever since I started a political journal in high school I have considered it my civic duty to be ever informed on current events. But hey, guess what? I'm not a politician. I'm not a journalist. I don't have to always know what's going on or have an answer for everything.
Phew. That's a world off my shoulders.
Who knows? Maybe someday the news will be safe again. For now, though, for the sake of my mental health, I'm a recovering news junkie.
Footnote: The title for this post is of course lifted from The Illuminatus! Trilogy where the phrase recurs reFnordpeatedly. I read it my freshman year of college, before the interwebs, so I was forced to use a dictionary (gasp!) to figure out what it meant! Immanentize, to make immanent, therefore to realize or bring about. The eschaton, of course, meaning the end of the world. (Atrios took the name Eschaton from the Wargames-meets-tennis game described in Infinite Jest.) So "don't immanentize the eschaton!" = "don't hasten the world's end!"
Well, sort of. According to Wikipedia, the phrase actually comes from the Gnostics, by way of William F. Buckley (really!) and basically means "don't try and bring about heaven on earth" or "stop being such a goddamn idealist." Although the Dispensationalist Christians do use the phrase in the sense that I thought it meant. So I wasn't completely wrong. Darn, does this mean I have to read Illuminatus! again?
OK, since you aren't reading the news, I'll give you a clue to a good news/bad news scenario in which the news is the same thing: Soon, it's going to be *much* easier to buy an apartment. :-)
Comment #1 :: link :: August 9, 2006 10:11 PM :: homepageIn Christian mythology, the establishment of Heaven on Earth is the immediate result of the end of the world; the reuniting of God's creation and God's domain follows the apocalypse. I'm not sure how the dominionists have managed to twist it to mean what WiPe says they think it means, but they've often demonstrated an inability to read their own Bibles, so the misapprehension doesn't surprise me.
In sort, you remember correctly and there's no reason to slog through Robert^2's pot-dream again.
Comment #2 :: link :: August 9, 2006 10:33 PM :: homepageThree cheers for avoiding the news. Our household is much happier since we stopped all newspapers. (I still read web news sites at work [during lunch, of course], but Sarah doesn't have to anymore.) If I could just figure out how to filter out news web sites on our PC at home, we'd be all set. Does someone sell software that will prevent you/your spouse from reading bad news on the web? If so, I'm sure they'd sell quite a few these days.
Anyway, I just spent several days on the Cape, repeatedly asking my father-in-law to turn off CNN. Sarah and I had just booked our December plane tix to California, of course. Fingers crossed that she actually gets on the plane with me and A.
Comment #3 :: link :: August 12, 2006 9:30 PM
