The UK election is over. Now many Britons will have to learn what so many of us Americans learned long ago: you don’t live in the country you thought you lived in. The country you live in is a much colder, meaner, nastier, more bitter, unfeeling and hard-hearted place than you ever imagined. You will also have to learn what many Americans have learned, over many decades: to follow the example of the Soviet dissidents of yore, and become an “internal exile,” fighting to hold on to and, as best you can, to transmit the richer, deeper, more humane values of our common humanity, even as you live in alienation from the unfeeling power structures that surround you. It is a sad lesson to learn, a sad way to live — but in the corrupted currents of this world, it is the only honourable and decent way to conduct your life and preserve your sanity. It’s a hard road, yes, but let us bear the journey together, in solidarity, revelling in every drop of joy and meaning we can find, while we continue to fight the good fight and, in the words of the American bard, “strengthen the things that remain.”
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