<\/p>\n
Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first part of this week\u2019s editorial conference digressed, with a sort of melancholy passion, into analyzing the Biden-Trump debate; the second part \u2013 very much event-driven \u2013 took a Shakespearean turn.<\/p>\n Just one of the five editors is a US citizen, but of course this election has a certain global significance. We don\u2019t have a vote but we do have a stake in the outcome \u2013 enough of a stake for three of us to have stayed up half the night to watch the debate.<\/p>\n The policies to be debated were pertinent and pressing, but it is, alas, a truth now universally acknowledged that policies never had a look in. The thing was all about projecting personality.<\/p>\n One candidate exuded swagger and resentment. (\u2018A tale told by an idiot\u2019 Rami remarked. She didn\u2019t add \u2018sound and fury\u2019 and \u2018signifying nothing\u2019, those being understood.)<\/p>\n The other aspired to empathy and optimism \u2013 though \u2018shut up, man\u2019, (the \u2018get thee to a nunnery\u2019 of another age), infused the genial persona of the happy warrior with an understandable but nonetheless off-message tetchiness.<\/p>\n \u2018Those who will not reason, are bigots,\u2019 Dimitri said, \u2018those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves \u2013 that popped into my head in the first half hour, but I had drunk quite a lot by then, so other things popped in too.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018That\u2019s a good one!\u2019 Rami said. \u2018Coleridge?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Byron.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Look at CNN!\u2019 Patrice said.<\/p>\n \u2018Patrice!\u2019 I struggled to assume the gravitas required sometimes of an editor-in-chief (or, indeed, a debate moderator), \u2018We\u2019re in a meeting. You shouldn\u2019t be watching CNN.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Trump has Covid!\u2019 Patrice said.<\/p>\n The figures on the screen in front of me did that thing that people do on such occasions. All eyes looked away from the camera, and the spell of the virtual meeting was shattered. Everyone reverted to the actual reality of their physical space, visibly scrolling through the news options on their home pages.<\/p>\n \u2018He will portray himself as the victim now,\u2019 Kim said.<\/p>\n Kim is the only one of us who has a vote in this election, or, more correctly, who has had<\/em> a vote, as she has \u2013 she told us at the beginning of the meeting \u2013 already posted her ballot.<\/p>\n \u2018One man in his time plays many parts!\u2019 Dimitri said.<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s hard to play that part when you\u2019ve made a virtue of swagger,\u2019 Rami said.<\/p>\n \u2018And there are so many more victims,\u2019 Kim said. \u2018People who got sick and died because others wouldn\u2019t wear a mask.\u2019 Her tone betrayed, I thought, an uncharacteristic bitterness.<\/p>\n \u2018What did Camus say about the plague, Patrice?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n \u2018Quite a lot,\u2019 Patrice replied.<\/p>\n \u2018Something about not being on the side of the contagion.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Il y a sur cette terre des fl\u00e9aux et des victimes, et il faut refuser d’\u00eatre avec le fl\u00e9au,’ Patrice said. \u2018There\u2019s the plague and there are the victims \u2013 all I can say is don\u2019t be on the side of the plague.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018But no one is on the side of the virus,\u2019 Rami said.<\/p>\n \u2018Downplaying the threat doesn\u2019t help to contain it,\u2019 Dimitri pointed out.<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s eyes darted across the screen as she skimmed a new report. \u2018We\u2019ve conflated government with personality,\u2019 she said. \u2018As long as we make decisions based on personality instead of policy, we will have a soap opera instead of a government.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Soap operas are a window on the world,\u2019 Rami said, \u2018though an unreal world, of course.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Such stuff as dreams are made on,\u2019 Patrice quipped. (Patrice has a very French \u2013 and bracingly independent \u2013 perspective on US politics and appears sometimes to take the matter less seriously than the rest of us.)<\/p>\n \u2018We<\/em> are the problem,\u2019 Dimitri said. \u2018Soap operas \u2013 and this particular presidential soap opera \u2013 are merely the symptom. The fault, dear Kim, lies not within the stars, but in ourselves.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Shall we return to the business at hand,\u2019 I asked. But by then the news had entirely hijacked our collective concentration.<\/p>\n \u2018He will make mischief, even from his sickbed,\u2019 Kim said.<\/p>\n \u2018The fool doth think he is wise,\u2019 Rami said. \u2018but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.\u2019<\/p>\n Which was a rather gloomy conclusion, but undoubtedly a pertinent one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine. The first part of this week\u2019s editorial conference digressed, with a sort of melancholy passion, into analyzing the Biden-Trump debate; the second part \u2013 very much event-driven \u2013 took a Shakespearean turn. Just one of the five editors is a US citizen, but of course this election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[112,109,32,111,39,110,113],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/cropped-banner-K1-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}