I’m really interested in the liberals’ “stay inside forever” response to the pandemic. At first glance, I think this is a reaction to observed state failure and an attempt at seizure of certitude from the jaws of ambiguity and decline.

But how this withdrawal dovetails with the diminution of risk and pleasure even prior to the pandemic, and how many people (especially on the lib side) see the world as having gotten more dangerous even as it has gotten safer, has me reconsidering how deep this goes.

My guess is that the pandemic has accelerated, as it has in other arenas, something that would’ve occurred anyway: the lib dream future of all being wireheads, ensconced in the pod, watched over by Brautigan’s “machines of loving grace,” not having to deal with the messiness of the world at all.