Against despair

Four entries ago, I proposed a resis-

tance to rapture misplaced by mis-

comprehension of a beautiful thing;

and I cannot think of anything more

profoundly the reason, to adopt a 

resistance to despair. It's trouble-

some, that these ostensible antipodes

are so alike in their derivation, and

so similarly an alienation in their

effect. In winespeak, a vain debris

blocks the arterial connection wine

has with human right and human hope,

in the form of exclusionary arcana

of often erroneous, merely prejudi-

cial judgment. In the desperate if

not compulsive travesty of affection

portrayed here, I think I need say

nothing more than that it should

excite a general sympathy, yet draws

promises of its extirpation from 

a political movement, to seize

power to rob society blind of its

capacity to govern itself humanely,

and to set a standard for corros-

ive viciousness that saps the wit

to resist war and industrial rape.

But what is true of rapture's reformation

is true of despair's; there are people we

love to be looked out for, before we worry

about the legitimacy of other speech. This

pricelessly authentic image, we could say,

does not reflect our famous progress today;

but that is a denial with which I won't ev-

en trifle, so long as its legibility is as

instantaneous as it is. Anyone may listen,

anyone may read the papers, for transcripts

of the competition for this political move-

ment's leadership, to confirm their zeal to

restore this desolation.

It is a good thing, that one of our leading

Western religions has named despair, a sin;

it would have been wonderful if it had done

the same for rapture, that repulsive image

of certitude run amok in the verities of the

occult. But the problem of despair is left

to be ministered to by reinforcements of it-

self, so that despair is communicable while

rapture is only emulated. Despair is not on-

ly permitted to exist, it is propagated so

that it can be condemned; and tragically 

worse, palliated so that it can be pursued.

Everyone who is in a position to make these

observations knows that despair is not a

style, though it is clothed and conducted

as one; that it is not a preference, but

a historic bond of an entire social class. 

It is, like wine criticism's arcana, an ac-

cretion of blockage from style, blockage

from affection, blockage from truth.

We are all born to experience delight, yet

how far we have come, where rapture and

despair so plainly share a common face.

In the United States, conspicuously, all

of us have seen the falsehoods of rapture 

as well as those of despair, and we have 

observed their uncanny correlations more 

than many times. 

These are catastrophes of a cultural 

inheritance which have throttled the 

nation’s progress since long before

Patrick Buchanan urged Richard Nixon 

to devote himself to their exacerba-

tion. We know the rapture of those 

who exult in this, the despair of 

its recurring targets. The wretched

binomial is alive and well again in

this season, and there are those we

love, to be looked out for, in stren-

uous vigilance and prayer that the

beast will dissolve, some day. 

Yet we know there are private elec-

tions being held every day, uncon-

sciously, between these indistin-

guishable choices. To write it down, 

to speak it audibly, can be to think 

it out; the fresh page, the unseen 

listener, like the dog-eared Horace
and the sudden injury, are often 
better counselors than we know.

This land is your land ..