I know this a little adjacent to the main antiwork posts, but it honestly felt more appropriate here than somewhere like r/politics
This weekend I had a rather heavy conversation with a couple friends of mine about the state of the world, and feeling like we were on the slow boil about to spill over, and the violence that we’d have to deal with.
One of my friends is a historian who’s area of study is the 20th century, with no small part focusing on political history and civil unrest surrounding the world wars to present day (Needless to say, they have some big opinions on Ukraine.)
I commented on not really knowing what the scale of violence would be, or even what it would look like, only that it felt inevitable and I was apprehensive about it.
They said something that shook me far more than I expected.
“In the next 10-15 years, if not sooner, the United States is going to begin their own Troubles in earnest.”
I got really quiet for a bit after that while they explained some of what that meant to the people who were too young or otherwise had never learned about it.
They checked in with me a little later and asked if I was okay. I told them the truth: I felt a much more tangible fear than I ever had before about our future.
They started to tell me not to let fear make me freeze, and I corrected them that I meant it was a resigned fear, not shock, that I felt. I knew what they were saying had substance to it, and I knew, or at least had an idea, however detached, of what that looked like, that I was trying to reconcile with my own future. They nodded and said resigned fear was a good way to describe the feeling.
So yeah, I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but… I’m friends with historians and academics for a reason, and I try to listen when they talk about what they know.