In my opinion, both are honorable. The other options are varying degrees of "little Eichmann[ism]" -- Ward Churchill's much scorned, career purge-inducing -- but never-the-less accurate phrase. If one does the "soul work," to appropriate archetypal psychologist James Hillman's term, it is still possible to resist complicity. Training yourself to avoid lying for provisional gain is a time honored means of prevented alliances with exploitive assholes. They will avoid you, fire you, curse your name from the darkness of their inner abyss -- but this will solve the problem of dependance on them -- and you'll be forced to live by other means. Generally, one is more adaptable than one believes.
Keep yourself as healthy and as sane as possible: we're going to need you around after the inevitable collapse of the present system. Also, beware of those reductionist demons of the mind who diminish the soul-making possibilities of "mere" words. The acts of writing and reading are seen as passive; to crackpot realists, these activities seem useless, unproductive -- the feckless indulgences of a class of the thin-wristed effete.
Accordingly, Americans have all but ceased reading. Worse, they displace their feelings of self-loathing borne of their own corporately induced passivity upon writers and thinkers. If the tenets of democratic discourse are to survive, it is imperative that writers and thinkers begin to engage in a passionate defense of themselves against the kvetching armies of crackpot realists that have encircled and laid siege to our collective hearts and minds.
But don't expect to be lauded with praise for the effort. It's doubtful our adversaries will be moved by our entreaties: There cannot be a rapprochement with reality for those who have never had a relationship with it in the first place. Yet verbal imagery and depth-inducing insights are the DNA of compassionate engagement. It is not a coincidence that George W. Bush is an inarticulate oaf. Conversely, there are many things in this world that require being touched by words, for there are occasions when words alone can suffice to take us deep and lift us up and serve to ameliorate our alienation.
It is in this spirit that I offer the words above to you; I'm traveling light; they're all I'm carrying with me, at this late hour, in these dark and dangerous times.
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