About 57 years ago or so, I passed through London on my way home to New York from a conference in Italy and spent an evening visiting Ernest Gellner and his family in their cottage south of London (I knew Gellner because in the 50s, when he was visiting Harvard, he briefly dated my sister.) It turned out that the day I spent with Gellner was election day in England so we sat in his cottage and watched the results come in on television. I knew absolutely nothing about English politics and had never heard of any of the candidates but I was mesmerized, as I always am, by election results. I have no idea why they fascinate me but they always have.
Yesterday evening, I stayed up well past my bedtime watching
the results of the runoff election in Georgia until finally, at about 11:30 PM,
MSNBC and CNN called the race for Warnock.
I have not had so much fun in a very long time. It was made all the more
delicious by the fact that earlier in the same day a jury found the Trump
organization guilty on all counts in the civil trial in New York City.
Generally speaking I am in despair about what is happening in the United States
so I have to take my pleasures where I find them and yesterday was a really
good day.
Now, on to the indictment of Trump.
Was it election day in only England, or was it election day in the United Kingdom? There is a difference. And it's not a minor one since such anglocentrism is one of the factors, albeit a relatively minor one, contributing to the present breaking up of the UK.
ReplyDeleteStudent here. I and at least one other person I've spoken to had a question about your personal politics. You've mentioned numerous times that you were a Marxist, an anarchist, and a radical, but on your blog you seem very passionate about the Democratic Party. Certainly, (reluctantly) supporting the Democrats out of a principle of harm reduction or lesser-of-two-evils would be perfectly understandable, but I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit to the fervor with which you support the Democrats.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was a good result. Although it should, in a sane world, have gone without saying that Warnock would beat Walker in an election; the former seems to be an articulate and capable guy who acts like a credible US Senator while the latter seems (based admittedly on slender research) like a complete moron.
ReplyDeleteBut the real reason I am posting is just to say how impressed I am with the number of the bigwigs of 20th century philosophy that you have met and known! Great Ernest Gellner story :)