Private Life - Sept 24 2025

 

Private Life

Sept 24 2025

Behind closed doors and drawn shades

private life proceeds

in the insular gaze 

of its protagonists,

unseen 

unjudged

unimpeded.

Occasionally, the outside seeps in,

brief glimpses 

of raised fists

and mobs on the street,

politicians caught 

in flagrante delicto

with envelopes for influence,

as well as faraway wars

that aren’t in the news

and so of little concern.

The inside, though, holds itself close;

nothing to go on

but light leaking out around the shades

and the muffled sounds that escape.

I don’t know

if private life is a refuge,

effectively complicit,

or an even worse disgrace.

All I know is

it feels safe.

Perhaps the sounds might have tipped me off

if I’d bothered to listen.

But I walked on by

eyes averted and ears numbed,

if not entertained or distracted

then content in my ignorance.

Or simply overwhelmed

by the relentless barrage of events.

Retreating into apathy,

withdrawing

into a private life of my own

  — the one thing I control.

And the only place

the mob can’t get me.

I urge you to read this brilliant piece by George Packer, a perfect précis of our embattled times. (That is, if the government censors haven’t had their way and this link isn't zombified by the time you get to it!)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/america-authoritarian-regime-ai-suicide/684350/

I wrote this poem right after reading his short essay. I didn’t intend to echo his argument, I just felt in the mood to write.  But clearly, what he said must have been there, front of mind. 

He talks about the creep of authoritarianism, in its many insidious ways. One that struck me was how these days it operates not by overt repression, but rather by distraction, falsehood, and the fomenting of mistrust: the ultimate result being withdrawal and apathy more than the fearful compliance of Stalinism and fascism. (Back then, if it wasn't that, it was enthusiastic complicity!) And even as passionate as I am in opposing Trumpism, I find this happening in myself:  articles I would have read with outrage (as well as desperate to feel I'm not alone and that at least someone's proclaiming the truth) I now simply pass on, hoping to find something — anything — non-political to read. So I wonder how the average person — the low-information voter who isn’t as politically engaged — is faring. 

Anyway, here’s a telling excerpt:

Authoritarian regimes and their allies flood the internet and social media with such a tide of falsehoods, so much uncertainty about what is true, so much distrust in traditional sources of information, that the public throws up its hands and checks out. While partisans on both sides use incendiary language in the endless battle for algorithmic attention, normal people who aren’t particularly engaged or informed grow numb and exhausted. And this social context allows authoritarians to exert control without resorting to terror. Unable to know the truth, we risk losing our liberty. “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt said near the end of her life. “And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

My intention was for the opening stanza (reinforced by the 3rd) to suggest this will be a story about domestic violence, hoping that the implication of private life being a dangerous place will carry over to the end of the poem and therefore add emphasis to the message that withdrawal, wilful ignorance, and apathy (mostly apathy!) are also dangerous, unwittingly complicit in furthering the authoritarian’s ends. 

Even if engagement itself carries risks:  retaliation and ostracism, yes; but mostly spiritual and emotional exhaustion! Which is how I’m beginning to feel in Sept of 2025:  to quote Packer, “numb and exhausted.” And to quote myself, “overwhelmed.”