I snapped this picture at the Canmore Brewing Company, as we stopped on our way back from the Continental Divide. As you head west from Calgary, Canmore is the last decent-sized town on the way to Banff. I liked Banff a lot, and it's certainly in an extraordinary location, but it also felt awfully Outlet Mally, whereas Canmore felt more like a legitimate city (with many of the same advantages of Banff).
Last night I finished Jason Stanley's How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, which I had started the day before; obviously, it was an engaging/enraging read. Snyder is one of two Yale professors (along with Timothy Snyder) who write on fascism and tyranny who decided to transfer to the University of Toronto. When you have professors who specialize in authoritarianism leaving the country, you're clearly not in a good place. I think I mentioned earlier that I'm planning to teach a class on fascism next spring, although I don't suspect that the University of Toronto will take me in once I'm deported. I think anyone who is paying attention understands where we're heading, and it's not simply that I have a unique understanding as a historian (although it helps). Still, Stanley lays out out so clearly, and in such a structured fashion, it would be difficult to read this book and not understand this moment in time. Just looking through the chapter titles alone would allow any educated reader to fill in the blanks: 1) The Mythic Past, 2) Propaganda, 3) Anti-Intellectual, 4) Unreality, 5) Hierarchy, 6) Victimhood, 7) Law and Order, 8) Sexual Anxiety, 9) Sodom and Gomorrah, and 10) Arbeit Macht Frei ("work will make you free," from Auschwitz). The problem is, of course, the paucity of educated readers, or even readers. Hence, the importance of teaching a class on fascism, although I'll do my best to avoid overdoing the bully pulpit. My main goal is to give students the intellectual content to make sense of this age. As Snyder tells us in chapter 3:
Fascist politics seeks to undermine public discourse by attacking and devaluing education, expertise, and language. Intelligent debate is impossible without an education with access to different perspectives, a respect for expertise when one's own knowledge gives out, and a rich enough language to precisely describe reality. When education, expertise, and linguistic distinctions are undermined, there remains only power and tribal identity.
As I discussed in the previous post, all you can do is do your best and fight on.
On Sunday, after our last meeting of our unofficial book club to read The Left Hand of Darkness, I took advantage of the fact that I was already on flat ground to go for a walk. Truthfully, there are days when I fear that I am losing the ability to walk. I just went through another battery of bloodwork, and it was, per usual, inconclusive. My neurologist, who is bright as hell and dedicated and hard-working, is clearly flummoxed (and if he can't figure it out I don't know who will). I'm discouraged, but I don't know what to do other than to grind on, doing the best I can. With that in mind, I've decided to try and walk as much as I can (in addition to my usual regimen of working out and swimming), even though it is exhausting and painful. I don't know if I think the extra walking will help, or I'm just enjoying the activity while it's still an option.
