Political ennui—or is it Weltschmerz?
I’ve been writing about politics for eleven years now, and never have I felt such a sense of dread about it. Dread mixed with a certain lassitude caused by overload.
The slowly-approaching and already nearly endless-seeming election campaign of 2016 has made it worse, but it really started in November of 2012. It was then, with the re-election of Barack Obama after what I considered an obviously disastrous first term, that it truly sunk in that the American voting public had changed in an even more fundamental way than I had previously thought, and I hadn’t been sanguine about things before.
This year is even worse. Forget the Republican field for a moment (if you can), and just look at the fact that Hillary Clinton is considered a competitive candidate by nearly half of America and may indeed win not only the Democratic nomination but the presidency. And yet, in almost every arena around the world, things have gotten worse during the administration of Barack Obama and his enabler, Hillary, and that’s before you even look at her own personal character and history.
When I was deciding on the title of this post and chose the word “ennui” to describe my feelings, I thought to look it up just to make sure I had the right word. When I did, I saw that the definition seemed to include the idea of lack of excitement: “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.” That doesn’t quite seem to be right, though— “satiety” maybe; lack of interest, no.
But then I found this helpful page entitled, “How to tell whether you’ve got angst, ennui, or Weltschmerz.” Note that the first and third words have German origins (although “angst” is also found in Dutch and Danish, and has passed into common English usage as well) whereas the second comes from the French. Ah, those world-weary Europeans!
I’ve got some of all of those three feelings, but I’ve concluded that the term with which I’m least familiar, Weltschmerz, fits the bill most exactly:
Weltschmerz, German for “world pain,” was also coined during the Romantic Era and is in many ways the German version of ennui. It describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is.
Wiki mentions “the feeling of anxiety caused by the ills of the world.”
Now, I realize this runs counter to the holiday spirit I should be exhibiting, and often do exhibit. Maybe a contributing factor is the exceptionally warm-but-gloomy (foggy, rainy, cloudy) weather we’ve been having in New England lately, the equivalent of a gray rather than a white Christmas. I figured, though, that I’d devote this post to the feeling and hope to purge it—angst, ennui, Weltschmerz—from my system.
Good post. I’d prefer to say simply that it’s a sense of defeat. The century long Gramsci march through the institutions has been successful and a wildly large number of Americas are functional leftists now.
Whatever anyone is feeling now buck up as the likely coming GOP defeat in 2016 will require a lot of stamina to survive.
In any case a very Merry Christmas to neo and all the posters.
Blessed Christmas Wishes to you, Neo, and
All whom you Love. This old neocon is tired beyond expression of The Donnie and the carnage he’s briÅ„ging
to our party and normally rational humans therein. May Iowa and New Hampshire restore critical thinking
to our side.
The endless campaigning gets boring after awhile.
We all become tired after a while and need to vent. This is a good thing, just don’t give up. Consider the holidays a “mental weekend” designed to refresh and re-gird, and then return to the fray with the same energy one had in the past. The battle is only lost when we surrender.
A very Merry and Meaningful Christmas to Neo and all of her commenters.
An apt description of my state of mind as well. The Christmas spirit of joy and hope are just very low.
I’ve seen a lot of things go wrong in the world, yet I always had hope and the joy of Christmas – a time of peace and goodwill towards all. This year it is muted.
In 1964 I was in the Philippines and attended the Bob Hope USO Christmas show on our base. We were far from home and family. And we were edging into Vietnam. He ended the show with a sing along – “I’m Dreaming of a White Chritsmas.” Not a dry eye to be found in the audience. None of us wanted to be there, yet, for that day our spirits rose and we turned back to our duties with renewed vigor. God bless Bob Hope and all he did for our overseas military during Christmases past.
Bob Hope represented the whole nation standing behind those who stood on the frontiers of freedom. Today, Hollywood, the MSM, and the progressives stand behind our troops trying to knife them in the back. It is the deep divisions and the inability to bridge the divides that cast such dark clouds for over the future.
Well, I knew not where things were going in 1964, but I knew I was going to do my duty as best I could. Now, 51 years later, I can only do the same. As Farragut said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” There, I feel better already.
Merry Christmas to all!
Let me add to the well-wishers: Appreciate that you and virtually all here have had the immense, unbelievable privilege of living in the most wonderful and inspiring country ever, while it was still a nation of hope and astonishing opportunity and wealth.
Never in human history have so many had such fabulous lives, with unlimited horizons. Indeed, wealthy American entrepreneurs are beginning to venture into space itself. The internet enables us to exchange ideas with people half a world away instantly, and at virtually no cost. And yes, we DID build that.
So be of good cheer and enjoy a Merry Christmas. You and I are the same age, and with any luck we will live the rest of our comparatively wonderful lives even as our beloved but battered nation continues the now-almost-inevitable arc down to the strife and struggle that characterizes most nations. And keep up the good work!
Merry Christmas, Neo.
Neo:
I told myself that Obama’s first election was a mistake made by people with good intentions. His second election had many causes, but the demographics couldn’t be ignored, and our fate made me dread politics. Since then, it’s as if I couldn’t tear my eyes from the proverbial wreck.
To think that life is defined by more than politics is what makes people conservative, so a natural conservative response to a rotten body politic would be to read and write about other things. That’s worked for me, and I haven’t had to give up my interest in the wreck. I’m not proposing withdrawal, much less surrender, but political mania is a vice. I’m just a supporter of rational engagement.
I’m sure there are lots of other things you could write about, and I’m sure that I’d be interested in your thoughts. My God, I just realized that I’ve become a diversity advocate. There must be a federal grant in there somewhere.
I always appreciate learning the most precise word for something. I hope we have reason to dial in on some version of optimism in 2016.
Cornflour:
I know what you mean. I do write about other things quite often, but it’s true that politics keeps drawing me back to “the wreck.
I appreciate everyone’s good wishes for the holidays, and I will do my best to enjoy them.
Who is John Galt?
In my putting to words in the last thread as to the news and articles to point how its irrelevant how various states allow the potential for various games…
but later it dawned on me how to describe what i was seeing which was familiar, but alien as well.
the news is written as if its one side in a war in which the other side has its own news and land. it is more akin to our reporting the news as to germany or japan during the war with all the slanted and dirty names and such. in such a time, germany or japan would never have seen their side of the argument portrayed as a fair and balanced point, they would be assumed to have their own press in their own land who would comment similarly the other way around.
we no longer have the feeling of a peoples who are deciding overall direction, but the feeling of a persons in a war… with its slow wearing down of the people with its constant harangue as to the evil of the other side
for all its rhetoric as to being anti war, the left is all about war… culture war, gender war, war of the sexes, war against poverty, war between rich and poor, haves nad have nots, on and on and on for well over 40 years
its like reading that Oceana has made progress against Eastasia and Eurasia…
meanwhile, the distraction is keeping us from paying attention to the aritcles screaming as to how russia is rearming and on the move again, and china seems to be chomping at having a conflict to see how they would do…
Merry Christmas, Neo-neocon and fellow readers!
I think part of the problem of our times is that our populations are now so large and urbanized. It’s hard for families to stay close together and to be there for each other. I don’t know how this can be fixed.
I grew up in an era when aunts, uncles, and cousins lived near each other. My generation scattered to the far corners of the U.S., and our children have very little contact with their cousins.
When illness or accident strikes, people tend to look for the government to help them out. This is where medicare, obamacare, other social services come into play. It’s hard to be self-sufficient when one can’t grow food or have relatives nearby to bring over food.
Just a depressing thought, but I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while. One of the seeming attractions of parts of the U.S., Europe, and Britain is that they have cute little villages where people know each other and are related to each other. How many people today can actually live like that without a car to get to work elsewhere? Life is very expensive, even for frugal people.
Russia Rearms For a New Era
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/world/asia/russia-arming.html
eye opener of what we have been not focused on…
and China is a whole other thing too
In general, I find it helpful to focus on what I can do, rather than what other people might do, which I have no control over. Besides that, people in the past have often had it worse, with wars, downturns, and disasters, both natural and man-made.
As for the 2016 election, I find myself excited, ever since Trump made his first comments about immigrants, and then did not back down. I’m looking forward to the campaign in 2016, and will be very interested once the first primary votes start coming in.
And while Hillary looks good on paper as a candidate, she has a glass jaw. It just takes someone to stand up to her, and tell the truth about her, loud and clear.
Merry Christmas, Neo.
Perhaps “acedia” is better than Weltschmertz, angst or ennui for our times.
Cardinal Schonborn said in 1996, “The spiritual masters traditionally call this torpor of mind and heart ‘acedia.’ ”
Torpor of mind and heart.
And from another contemporary Cardinal, “Acedia is a gloomy combination of weariness, sadness, and a lack of purposefulness. It robs a person of his capacity for joy and leaves him feeling empty, or devoid of meaning.”
It is not a new word.
Yesterday I went to my aunt’s funeral. She was an ethnic (Polish Catholic) liberal. Today’s liberalism is nothing like what the left is today. But she would have voted for Hillary just out of loyalty. If she would have stayed in Illinois, she may yet still vote.
Thanks for “weltschmerz”, not a word I’d seen before, but precisely right. 2012 was what made it apparent that there was a much bigger problem than just a temporary takoever of most of the government by the most horrible people available. I read some de Tocqueville in college (many decades ago, before history was banned). Tyranny of the majority: it seemed purely academic then. The majority of the population can elect a leader that will act to transform the country in a destructive way. The majority is just too ignorant/stupid/easily manipulated (all self-reinforcing qualities).
I thought 2012 was max “weltshmerz”, but it wasn’t. There were a bunch of predictable insanities, but then there was the Iran deal. I could not have even conceived of an American president enabling Iran to get nukes, much less with a sitting Republican congress. That took things to 11 on the weltshmerz scale.
I’m pretty burned out on politics 24/7. Normal people don’t want to have to think about politics all the time. We have lives to live. That’s why the Left keeps winning, because they eat, sleep, and breathe politics. They’re the ones who coined the phrase “the personal is political”.
I know I’ve been pretty testy in the comments lately, and I apologize, neo. Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah, as the case may be.
The American people learn, but do it slowly. They have too much goodwill for their own good sometimes.
They’re learning.
I want to inspire you and give you strength, Neo, to feel rewarded by this effort in your life’s work. You contribute an absolutely invaluable service to me, and I imagine to most of your readers. You validate my thoughts and feelings with your research and articulate expression of facts and logic. I am amazed at how often you brilliantly discuss a perspective I had been thinking about.
When I feel discouraged about the direction of Western Civ, and just as important, my alienation from longtime liberal friends, I remind myself that I am a member of a remarkable species that has created miraculous bounty for many at this point in its history. The hopeful ideals of religions and The Enlightenment of the last millennia are unrealistic in their failure to realize this Darwinian truth: “The struggle for life is most severe between individuals and varieties of the same species” (Origin of Species). Humans and other higher species continually compete for status as well as food, shelter and mates.
Given that understanding, I see myself as a scientific observer of a most remarkable species. But most importantly, I realize that my life so far has been miraculously bountiful in health and healthcare, financial security, neighborhood and country security, freedom of action, and wonderful recreation. When I think of the great variety of tragedies throughout history and in other parts of the world, now, I think that miraculous is not overstating it.
Unfortunately, right now, could be like 1938, only worse.
Alan F
Central Californian Coast
Promethea, that was a great point.
Merry Christmas, neo and all!
Alan F:
Like many things Darwinian, it may be true but it has also to be proved.
“The struggle for life is most severe between individuals and varieties of the same species” (Origin of Species).
Do you have any proof?
Or know of any?
Any species excepted?
Does this Darwinism apply, for example, to mosquitos?
Alan F.:
I want to inspire you and give you strength, Neo…Unfortunately, right now, could be like 1938, only worse.
You started out nice, but the ending is less than hopeful. Oh, and have a Merry Christmas.
Neo–
Since you made this post, I’ve been thinking a lot about your mental state; I hate it that you’re depressed, but being totally immersed in politics like you are would depress anyone. I blame the media. It’s my belief that the craven media want to depress people – conservatives especially – “If it bleeds, it leads” and all that. Their “product” is like a drug and they want to get you hooked. You just have to step back from time to time and realize that there is another world out there where things actually make sense and individuals are capable of achieving their goals.
I think I mentioned a couple months back that I made a three week cross-country trip and didn’t read “the news” the entire time. I met wonderful people everywhere I went, and felt a lot better about the future of America afterwords.
I’m certainly not suggesting that you take a break from blogging but, you know, everyone needs a vacation once in a while. Your highest moral duty is to take care of yourself.
Note to Alan F: The wife and I built the house and barn on the corner of LOVR and Lariat Dr.
snopercod:
Thanks.
I try not to “totally immerse” myself in politics, but I have to fight it, because politics can really suck you (that is, me) in. But that’s why I often write about other things, such as dance; it’s an excellent distraction and a much more pleasant subject.
However, I think my New Year’s resolution (made to be broken) is to limit my political reading more. I certainly don’t plan to quit blogging though.
Thanks so much to all of you, too.
A lot of us are grateful for that! You have a great talent, if you don’t mind me saying so.
One thing which helps me put the current mess in perspective is history. We’ve had a number of scoundrels in our government – maybe more scoundrels than honest people. Politics has been so heated in the past that government officials resorted to pistols at twenty paces to resolve their differences. There have been times when brother fought brother to the death. Citizens have been gunned down in the streets by the military.
None of these past events excuses the current administration’s trampling of the Constitution, and Congress’ refusing to do their duty, but we’ve still got it better right now than at many times in the past. I realize that “It could be worse” is small consolation, but I have to believe in the good sense of everyday Americans – the kind I met on my trip. You never see them on TV, but millions of them are out there.
Another thing to be thankful for is the younger generation. We (well OK, I) like to mock the “millennials”, but I am very satisfied that both my kids have turned out to be conservatives – and my daughter is a teacher, too! The grandkids and step-grandkids are the same. Seeing that gives me hope.
“It could be worse”
it could be raining
One of my favorite movies! LOL!