This will be my last post on Substack.
There's an argument for staying or leaving, but this is where I landed.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
This is me, doing something in the only way I know how right now.
It’s an imperfect world, and big decisions are often the hardest ones to make. They’re complex and ungainly and very often the right big decisions are also attached to many bad decisions, interwoven with them like a Chinese finger puzzle. In fact, that’s a perfect analogy. For anyone who hasn’t come across these gag toys, they look like this:
The unsuspecting mark puts an index finger in each end, but when trying to pull them back out, the finger puzzle constricts. The harder they pull, the stronger it gets. Only by completely relaxing the fingers can they gently free their fingers from the puzzle.
So as we wrestle with what it means to ‘pull,’ and what the consequences might be of ‘relaxing,’ I offer you this New York Times article about the Substack founders’ response to their tolerance for nazis and white supremacists on their platform. We must all make these decisions for ourselves, and the more dialogue and information we can gather, the better our decisions are likely to be.
An important realization:
When the debate was going on about gay marriage, and there were people outraged by the very thought of it—I, as a woman happily married for fifteen years to another woman, thought, “If you find the idea of marrying someone of the same sex absolutely horrific, against nature, wrong, then don’t do it.”
I guess I can superimpose that thought process here. In this case, I’m the outraged one. I’m the one pointing the finger and sputtering in disbelief that anyone could even think of giving these people a platform. If I find the idea of white supremacy or nazis on Substack so abhorrent, then just don’t hang out where they hang out (on Substack, for instance).
Hmm. Guess this discussion will be continued on Medium.
You can find me there at https://tinalear.medium.com/
Moving on
As we sail into 2024, the waters are uncharted—both for democracy and, always, for ourselves. None of us knows the future. We are only on the boat, losing and finding our balance as it shifts with the waves, smelling the air, watching the stars for guidance.
May everyone, everywhere, be nourished with good food, with loving Others, and with connection to that which is unfathomably bigger than us. Let us surrender to our own deeper wisdom. Every day.
Blessings.