For a short time a few years ago, I lived next door to a psychiatrist with a reputation for treating writer’s block. I saw no need to consult him then, but since the second week of November, I’ve wondered if he might offer cut-rate consultations to ex-neighbors. When I retired from teaching three years ago, I was determined to get more writing done, but since November it’s been all I can do to compose a few holiday greetings.
Writer’s block has not been a universal response to Donald Trump’s election. There have been many expressions of blame, grief, anger, despair, swagger and surprise, as well as some unconvincing claims of having seen it coming all along.
My own uncharacteristic silence was attached to symptoms likely to be familiar to many readers. News reports of political appointments and inauguration plans, interesting in the past, gave me stomachaches. Fiction and music that should have offered welcome diversions from political worries were annoying.
But I’ve begun to understand the reason for my silence, and why it might be ending. As a teacher for more than four decades, I was often the bearer of bad news about wrongs we’ve committed in our treatment of each other here and abroad, as well as mistakes we’ve made in our care of the Earth. But I was determined to show students evidence of our efforts to correct the errors and right the wrongs.
As a writer, I’ve been equally dogged about balancing bad news with reasons for hope. But for a time after Nov. 8, that balance seemed unattainable, as though our world had been turned upside down or was about to be, and we were careening into a time of great moral confusion, an era of raging civic insanity.
But years ago, when biologist Mary Clark was teaching one of the early courses in environmental studies in California, she told me the danger in exploring the ecological damage caused by industrial processes, including much modern agriculture, was that students sometimes lost hope. Later, Clark wrote a book about how our conception of human nature can underscore such despair and why it should not. At the beginning of her 2002 book In Search of Human Nature, she says, “To entice you into this huge tome, I will tell you now that I believe our true natures are far more lovable and positive than we in the West currently believe them to be. There is indeed hope for us after all.” She shows convincingly how the impulse toward community, stewardship and sustainability may be more “natural” than most of us assume.
Clark would surely find hope in our predicament today despite our president-elect’s Twitter rhetoric of angry exclusion and intolerance, his appointments of people to lead agencies entrusted with tasks for which they have shown no competence and much contempt, and what I see as his apparent intention to place personal profit over national welfare.
We are already building communities of resistance to the mean-spirited political vision that threatens us, Clark would say. Many communities and organizations are strengthening our efforts to protect the Earth and the human rights of people we welcome as members. These groups are likely to become increasingly aware of their common goals. We are creating a politics of hope and affirmation that will influence both of our major political parties as they work to find ways out of their identity crises and find popular support.
Democrats are rediscovering the crucial importance of state and local governments, and Republicans are beginning to see that diminishing the support of the federal government in Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will be politically dangerous. Both parties are learning that the economic inequality brought to our attention a few years ago by the Occupy movement will have to be addressed.
Finally, as we seek new leaders in what is sure to be a very troubled time, it seems clearer every day that political courage will become a crucial qualification for elective office. Mary Clark was right about reasons for hope.
Bill Nichols, a resident of West Lebanon, taught at Denison University in Ohio for more than 30 years. As a retiree, he taught writing courses at Vassar College and Dartmouth until 2013. His publications include a novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition, York’s Journal. He can be reached at Nichols@Denison.edu.