What Kinds of Times Are These?

Guest Opinion

What kinds of times are these, when
To talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
—Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), from To Those Born Later

Summer in northern Michigan is inexpressibly transcendent. Everywhere we look, everything we touch, smell, or feel reminds us that we live in paradise on earth. I want to celebrate that, in this splendid season.

I want to write about the patch of milkweed that seeded itself in my garden, inviting Monarch butterflies to a feast. But I think about the collapse of the Monarch population due to pesticides, climate change, and habitat loss.

I want to write about the scent of the air in early summer, when it’s both warm and cold and suffused with notes of grass, damp sand, flowers, and suntan lotion. But I think about the elimination of air quality regulations, the promotion of coal-fired power plants, and increased forest fires, all of which will result in reduced air quality.

It awes me, the way the lake is turquoise and navy blue and green and, at sunset, pink. What color will it be if Enbridge’s gas pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac fails?

Paradise to me is reading a book on the beach with a bowl of cherries at my feet. Will more and more books be banned until I can only read what the government allows?

That first swim of the season sends a shock to my system that reminds me I’m alive. But climate change is warming the water, and invasive mussels cause bouts of smelly algae that poisons seabirds.

Trees laden with golden apricots, ripe peaches, crisp apples. The immigrants we depend on for the harvest may not be allowed to come here or may be afraid to come.

Hiking through Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore with its rivers and ghost forest and sand dunes is an annual tradition. But will our National Parks have the staff to stay open? Will the parks be privatized and turned into resorts for the wealthy?

I’m so grateful for our wonderful local foods and farmers markets. What will happen to those people whose food assistance gets cut off?

I love sitting on the deck with my coffee, writing this column. Yet other people are getting snatched off the streets for expressing an opinion.

To feel empathy for everyone and everything that is in crisis and pain these days is overwhelming. Psychologists call it “compassion fatigue.” It is “the experience of any empathetic individual who is acutely conscious of societal needs but feels helpless to solve them.” (Psychology Today)

Elon Musk’s idea of Western civilization is clearly at odds with mine. In his view, too much empathy is a crucial problem of Western civilization. Empathy makes actions like cutting Medicaid and food assistance programs difficult. Empathy wouldn’t allow you to cut USAID programs that save children’s lives. Were you empathic, you wouldn’t be able to arrest people and throw them in foreign prisons where they are likely to experience torturous conditions. If you cared about future generations, you wouldn’t cut medical research funding that would lead to cures for diseases.

Is it a requirement for a corporate CEO to be without empathy? How about a politician? Can empathy be excised by reading enough right-wing propaganda about how all immigrants are criminals and climate change is a hoax? Or do money and power trump empathy (pun intended)?

Compassion fatigue can result in depression or PTSD. “Techniques like mindfulness, meditation or yoga, and time with loved ones or in nature, or devoted to interests or hobbies outside of work have been found to lessen the symptoms.” (Psychology Today)

Bertolt Brecht fled Germany in 1933, when the Nazis came to power. He wrote To Those Born Later in 1940. Brecht inserts a note of hope near the end of his poem, suggesting that the dark times will not last forever.

You who will emerge from the flood
In which we have gone under
Bring to mind
When you speak of our failings
Bring to mind also the dark times
That you have escaped.

May we all escape. For now, I will go walk in the summer rain.

Karen Mulvahill is a writer living in northern Michigan. Her new book, The Lost Woman, is now available.

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