This is what I came to the comments to mention! I think my biggest lesson from the recent disaster is that the last administration had me complacently believing that good people in government could do a lot of the job of loving my neighbor for me. I hope I will never be that naive again. It is up to me, always, whoever is in power.

Me too, so much! Especially in the last administration, I think I’ve grown complacent, and I want to combat that. Complacency is (among other things) what got us here, and I don’t want to be that person.

Ha, well, I don’t read MUCH stuff set in Russia, but Dispatches from Dystopia does sound really good. Thanks for the rec! 🙂

Yes! Yes, yes, I extremely agree. Especially in times of stress, it is so easy to find other people to do the thinking for you — and I’m not even saying that in a critical way, because I think there are cases where it is actually better to adopt other people’s opinions when you do not have and cannot easily get enough information to assess the situation yourself. But I appreciate that Baldwin in his search for answers consults his own intelligence first and foremost and really puts in the time to sort through arguments and see what makes sense to him.

It’s wonderful. I’d recommend it to everyone.