we must hate ourselves
the way we seek heroes from
the worst among us
Reading the interesting Guest Opinion Essay, The Unabomber, Me and the Poisoned Myth of the American West by Maxim Loskutoff (NYT June 9, 2024), a fiction writer whose novel “Old King” is about Ted Kaczynski and the American West, I was stopped cold by his line, We must hate ourselves, I thought, reading their posts, for the way we seek heroes from the worst among us.
Boy HOWDY but look at the ballots of the elections coming up.
If there is any agreement is that few people like the choices.
Yet we choose those who we must choose from.
We must hate ourselves for the way we seek heroes from the worst among us.
We are in charge here if only we would act like it.
Mr. Loskutoff writes, “We are all fed myths about our homes, whether it’s Montana as the last best place to hide or New York City as the cultural capital of the world.
But these are just stories, often relying on outliers like Mr. Kaczynski.
Our hometowns are far more complex than these mythologies, but seeing them as they really are — and loving them in all their tragic beauty — leads us away from destruction and isolation, to community and stewardship, a form of deeper purpose.”
As Mr. Lincoln once said, “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
Until that happens, we must hate ourselves for the way we seek heroes from the worst among us.
Again repeating Mr. Loskutoff:
Our hometowns are far more complex than these mythologies,
but seeing them as they really are —
and loving them in all their tragic beauty —
leads us away from destruction and isolation,
to community and stewardship,
a form of deeper purpose.
No Haiku For You 