‘A new world is being born’: author Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate - Lemmy Myserv one

““Nothing is inevitable,” [author Rebecca] Solnit says. “I use the word ‘evitable’ often.” It’s a familiar idea, that the far right creates chaos in order to distract and thereby upturn productive change, but Solnit dwells on the mechanics: “Authoritarianism always sees fact and truth as delivered by journalism, by history and by science as rival sources of power. Those are radically democratic things. You can be a king or a commoner, and the rules of gravity are still the same. So they attempt to undermine those things.” The politics of chaotic spectacle, disinformation and outright untruth leaves you endlessly trying to prove gravity, your own priorities derailed. The pattern is similar to that in an abusive relationship: it doesn’t matter what you say, and it doesn’t matter whether or not gravity exists. The purpose is to lock you into the engagement so that it becomes your reality.”