Listen, I’m not totally anti-darkness.

For instance, I used to be an orthodox night owl, and once my age/health and career rendered my nightowlism unsustainable, I learned that I sleep better in a room that is totally dark.

However, set aside those few quirky exceptions, and shifting from this ridiculous introduction to my primary point:

Daylight is Always Better

Scoundrels hide in the dark, they meet with each other and scheme, some are scared of getting caught, others are simply waiting to be emboldened to step out into the light, either by recruiting co-conspirators and building strength by numbers, and/or by some mouthpiece or another who succeeds in dignifying the existence of scoundrels and arguing that they have a right to be heard.

The one thing in common between a variety of contemporary phenomenon — climate change, racism, oligarchy, Sexual harassment, gun violence, etc. — is that daylight — in the form of environmentalists, groups like Black Lives Matter and Occupy, brave victims of sexual harassment/assault going public with their stories, gun control advocates, etc. — is shining more consistently and revealingly than it has in a long time, maybe more than ever.

The most immediate result of this daylight is media saturation, which has a profoundly demoralizing impact at first. It’s simply harsh to see horrors everywhere you look.

But, on my better days, when I can muster a modicum of optimism, I can just about reach for and try to embrace the possibility that with more daylight on these issues the more chance there is that a critical mass of concerned human beings will demand and eventually achieve badly needed change.

The villains in these situations range from clueless and passively participating, to truly diabolical.

They won’t give up without a fight, and we have to be prepared for that.

Filed under: Fish & Bicycles Tagged: climate change, guns, media, oligarchy, optimism, politics, racism, sexual assault, sexual harassment