Lawson Wulsin

Search for blogs by topic or date.

This list and search covers the blogs in this section, “You’re On My Mind.”

election

Our Flirtation with the Autocrat

Our Flirtation with the Autocrat

For most of recorded history, we homo sapiens have been led by autocrats. We have organized ourselves under tribes led by chiefs and kingdoms led by kings. Life under autocrats was better than life under chaos before civilization. It never was fair or nice, but it suited the nature we inherited from our herding animal ancestors, who followed their leaders. Those who strayed from the herd died young.

Then, two centuries ago along came a better idea, democracy. No more kings—let the people rule themselves. That was yesterday in history time. Democracy was a radical invention then, born through violent revolutions, over and over.

Seduce Me, Bob

Seduce Me, Bob

During Election Week 2020 my struggle to keep my bearings involved burying myself, when I’d seen too much for the day of the Electoral College numbers, in two gripping books that happened to be on top of my bedside stack. One was a comforting and inspiring book about an obscure man who has been dead for many years; the other was a disturbing book about an infamous man who is too much alive right now, but may have taken one giant leap toward dying—so-to-speak—that fateful week. That book fed the fire of my anxieties, while the other doused it. I couldn’t have made it through the week without them.