A fast-spreading virus knocks out people’s capacity for anger. Half of the city is infected. How does this make life worse?
I can only speculate that the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto had no idea what the United States was going to be like the two to three years after they wrote this in 2014. Frankly, I blame David Bowie. As soon as he died, the whole world seem to go down the proverbial loo.
It’s like one minute, it looks like a new age is dawning and the next, we’re waiting for the Seventh Seal. And I mean the one in Revelations and not the Ingmar Bergman film. (Start around Revelations 6 to get the gist of this). It’s like David was one of the first to be raptured and we’re just waiting for that bowl of fire to rain down on us. Which if you live in Southern California is a distinct possibility any time the Santa Ana winds kick up.
(Ok, I just referenced David Bowie, Ingmar Bergman AND Revelations in a single paragraph. Probably too many cultural references, even for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode)
I would like to sit and truly believe that fate would be kind, and the individuals that would be struck with the capacity NOT to feel anger would be the people who like to run around with tiki torches getting upset at the retirement of Confederate Statues. You know, the ones who seem to deem white sheets or modified swastikas as perfect fashion choices. But no, it would be those who are someone more reasonable and believe in things like equal rights for all humans, the environment and feel that women do have a place beyond the kitchen, the church and the birthing room. And this kind, calm infected populace would be quickly made extinct, leaving the world to a bunch of cockroaches and angry white men and women who’ve been brainwashed into internalized misogyny.
I was always taught not to rise to the bait of an angry person, and take the high road. You’re better than that, my mom would espouse. But in this day and age, there is a place for righteous anger and fighting back. It’s the only way to ensure we don’t leave the world to angry men in white sheets with cockroaches as companions. Unless of course the universe wants to visit them with a fast-spreading anti-angry virus.
skullwoman 