Amid the chaos and confusion and divisions of today's world, I read an article in the June 4, 2022 issue of Slate Magazine by Dahlia Lithwick entitled "Why Politics is Both the Poison and the Cure." She, too, was trying to put the events of today's world in perspective. She quoted comments of Howard Zinn that seemed to me to sum up our present dilemma and how to cope with it:
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is not only a history of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
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