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It’s hard not to worry. Brexiteers to the east of us, Trumpeters to the west. Political winds blow hard. Unseasonable weather augurs climate change. War is in the air.
How should each of us respond? It’s a personal question, affecting how we feel daily, as well as what happens to us.
When problems seem overwhelming there is strength in numbers. Friends help us to be well. Working with others to protect life and beauty can make us feel better. No man or woman is an island. The marches by women around the world in response to Donald Trump’s inaugurations as president were gestures that inspire hope.
Edmund Burke, Irish political philosopher, wrote that, "No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
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This means getting organised, for the common good. Join a political party, even if it is far from perfect; or an environmental group; or an activist church group; or a trade union, for example. Better to light one candle than forever curse the darkness.
It takes effort to organise. It means stepping outside our comfort zones. Most of us are not in the habit of associating for civic purposes. Political parties wither, congregations dwindle, unions fail to connect with a precarious generation.
A living wage, a decent home, civil rights and a clean environment are reasonable expectations. But we must fight for them for all, in the face of powerful global and national realities.
People are isolated. Some report anxious dreams about Donald Trump; many are perturbed by constant carnage in the news.
Carl Jung analysed unconscious or symbolic premonitions of coming trouble, of fascism and the second World War in his day. It's as if we feel it in our bones. The blood seeps out of Syria and into sitting rooms, into our psyches.
It’s easy to find excuses not to engage. Prominent Irish organisations are discredited by scandals. They are held in low esteem. Political parties are consumed by ambition, churches limp along, unions grew lazy. But sometimes perfection is the enemy of goodness. Cynicism can be the most comfortable form of complacency.
We may tell ourselves that one person makes no difference in a world of billions, that even nations are powerless in this era of globalisation.
Politicians can only do so much, especially if we are apathetic. Enda is our Odysseus, steering an Irish ship of state between monsters that threaten to swallow Ireland’s economy. In the end of the day, in a democracy, we get the government that we deserve. Governments get destiny.
Avoidance and denial are options. They can be attractive. Eat drink and be merry. Nothing wrong with that, until compulsive eating becomes a weight problem, drinking a tedious and damaging vice, and forced merriment slides into depression.
Combining can be negative. Some join a mob; gleefully kick ass; tweet from a height, sneer at “losers” and Bremoaners; wear a metaphorical blue shirt; deny climate science. But our happiness ultimately depends on the welfare of others.
We are born to survive as a species, and that biological imperative demands that we ask hard questions of ourselves in times like these. We will be long enough dead.
The ideology of deregulation discourages good order. Grab what you can, it whispers. Margaret Thatcher, one of the key ideologues of our era, infamously said, "there's no such thing as society . . . people look to themselves first". But even she avowed that there is a duty "to help look after our neighbour". She added, "life is a reciprocal business".
We saw the positive power of association during the recent Irish referendum on gay rights. People must organise for social and economic equality as well as for lifestyle choices. Not all who want the latter enjoin the former, as evident from the corporate profile of some supporters of marriage equality or abortion “rights” for example.
Alienation is a fact of life, and atomised online contact via the internet may now exacerbate it. But we need not be passive victims of circumstance. And we don’t have to be saints to do good.
Without aggression or self-righteousness, each of us can act to help strengthen vital organisations that may otherwise be controlled by people who would prey on the world rather than protect it, who look for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth.