Ten points from Calamity Jane, 21st Century version

Catastrophists of the world, unite, around optimism! That is a headline, you will never read. Instead, you will become one of those people “who doesn’t listen to the news anymore because it is too depressing.” Good luck with that as Nova Scotian smog invades New England’s June, a nuclear plant in the Ukraine is threatened by a lack of cooling water, the debt ceiling drama dissolves into more debt and more drama, and we act as though Covid were over, even though its depression lingers in evidence too large for even Calamity to ignore. That was just the first two weeks in June, 2023.

Covid could have been a remarkable alignment of people in a common purpose of protecting each other. It turned into a third-rate debate about whether bleach works to stop Covid or whether “side effects” dare prevent prevention. It turned into mutual recrimination instead of mutual aid.

Unlike the Second World War or the early aftermath of 9–11 or other slightly heroic aspects of American life, instead of a great belonging party, we entered a grand disaffiliation. Some people don’t even want their daughters to marry a Republican (Democrat) and don’’ while not minding at all if the couple pre-nuptualizes.

Since Covid came, most people live with the loss of the furniture of the self. Historian Kai T. Erikson in his study of a 1972 flood in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, where 125 people died and many more were traumatized, coined the term. If we couldn’t find each other, how could we possibly find…