Food is a collective coping strategy. Funny. Sad. True.

Maybe cake is the answer. I want to yell into a cake now. Feels cathartic. But, is it okay to be a silent non-violent protester? How do we confront violence, fear, hate? With violence? With indifference? With cake? How do we react and do differently, instead of inverse mirroring? Meeting hate chant with peace songs?  We are told to ignore the bully and engage the victim in public hate instances. Do we do the same with a group of torch bearing, blood and soil chants? How do we invoke Popper’s paradox of tolerance of everything except intolerance? How do we address isolation and alienation that fuels such hot hate?

“Arendt’s understanding of the origins of totalitarianism begins with her insight that mass movements are founded upon “atomized, isolated individuals.” The lonely people whom Arendt sees as the adherents of movements are not necessarily the poor or the lower classes. They are the “neutral, politically indifferent people who never join a party and hardly ever go to the polls.” They are not unintelligent and are rarely motivated by self-interest. Arendt writes that Heinrich Himmler understood these isolated individuals when he “said they were not interested in ‘everyday problems’ but only ‘in ideological questions of importance for decades and centuries, so that the man […] knows he is working for a great task which occurs but once in 2,000 years.’” The adherents of movements are not motivated by material interests; they “are obsessed by a desire to escape from reality because in their essential homelessness they can no longer bear its accidental, incomprehensible aspects.”

For the full article got to: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/arendt-matters-revisiting-origins-totalitarianism/#!

Tina Fey is a talented comedian who did an excellent job to expose the absurd through the absurd. Her comments make me think, as a philosopher what can I say? I’m still thinking…………….in the meantime pausing and eating “sheet-caking” is something we can do together. Still thinking……………….

Here is a flag cake recipe from my favorite TV chef Ina Garten. The cake was moise and light, the frosting tangy and sweet and much appreciated. The fruit is my favorite part. Strawberry, kiwi, mango, peaches can be other versions of this cake. I’m not a natural baker but Ms. Garten’s recipes make it easy. If I can bake it, you can too. Remember to share. That’s the most important part!

Wishing you a safe and happy weekend,

Hungryphil