"Start with a
politics cleanse: For two weeks… resolve not to read, watch or listen to
anything about politics. Don't discuss politics with anyone. When you find
yourself thinking about politics, distract yourself with something else. (I
listen to Bach cantatas, but that’s not for everybody.) This is hard to do, of
course, but not impossible. You just have to plan ahead and stand firm. Think
of it as ideological veganism. On the one hand, your friends will think you’re
a little wacky. On the other hand, you’ll feel superior to them."— American
author and academic Arthur C. Brooks, “Treat Yourself to a Politics Cleanse,” The
New York Times, Aug. 2, 2018
Seven years after Brooks
wrote this, a “politics cleanse” is all the more necessary—and all the more
elusive. Even today, on the 24th anniversary of the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, politics obscures what should be a day of
solemnity and service.
(The image that accompanies
this post, of Arthur C. Brooks speaking at an event in Phoenix, AZ, was taken
on Apr. 13, 2017 by Gage Skidmore.)
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