26.11.04 - 14:08

I'd like to share this quote from Tony Kushner (who wrote "Angels in America" among other things.) It's part of an interview from the magazine "Heeb" but was reprinted in "Utne." I try to bear it in mind...

"TK: Despair is cheap. Anybody can do that on their own. Pick up 'The New York Times' and read it from cover to cover and kill yourself.

Interviewer: Ultimately, where do you draw your hope from?

TK: You don't look at it as a feeling; you look at it as an ethical obligation. You look at it as a thing that you generate in yourself by recognizing that despair is a luxury. Not for everyone. Some people are really burdened by life, either by chemicals in their brains or terrible personal circumstances or social circumstances that make despair inexcapable. But most people in this country [the US] aren't. And since most of us aren't, we have an ethical obligation to look for hope and find it. It isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't there."

Very well stated and provocative, I think. And it would seem to apply equally to developing countries AND our current political catastrophe.

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