Reality Slap

Although Robert Sims may be correct that we’re all responsible for our plight, and that Caleb Cuff feels that “heroic fatalism” won’t save us (Letters, Oct. 11), I offer this: Being naive to the larger powers that wield control, and to our hopeful human nature, won’t save us.

“People need to know there is hope” — yes, and yet, like knowing you can vote, where has it gotten us? To where we are now, tipping toward extinction, no matter how much we voted for change and hoped for better outcomes.

And, no, “our future cannot include a … vehicle for everyone,” yet the (saner) “solution is not to produce more” humans! And have we forgotten the rest of life we take down that made our lives possible? 

Climate deniers reject reality in order to “prosper,” and yet, you know what? Studies show that “we the people” reject reality in order that we may win, thrive and get the “upper-hand.” On an evolutionary basis, it made sense for survival in a wild, scary and unknown world.

Fast-forward that this “rejection of reality” has come home to roost in a very real and painfully ironic full-circle: fearful of a now “known” environment we’ve created, not one born eons ago.

Chris Hedges (“Empire Falling,” Sept. 27) is the “bleak” reality slap we need, not want. If feeling naive, watch the documentary Greedy Lying Bastards to understand what gave us Trump and Kavanaugh.

As for a “transformed mindset” — hell, didn’t Marx, Eugene Debs and Henry Wallace have one?

Sean S. Doyle

Corvallis