In a lot of ways, this year feels like a giant flashback to 2016. Though, I had the privilege of not completely understanding what was going on back then.
The path of a social scientist is a thorny one; we can never be certain if the job market will be stable enough or whether our skills will still be considered "relevant" in the far-flung future. Though, I think reality is demonstrating to me that our "vague" skills of researching, being able to discern the truth from lies, and considering the ethical ramifications of every situation will always be relevant. The world probably needs social scientists now more than ever. Educators and psychologists and economists and librarians and sociologists and historians and many others have to come together in a time of great fear and fight against the flood of misinformation and disinformation, even if all we can do is tread water.
I'm in the process of applying to graduate school at the time of writing. I only dread what my student debt will look like afterwards, even after I have chosen to attend a school closer to home to save on housing costs. I have second-guessed myself more times than I can count after the election, but all we can do is keep pressing onwards and know that our place in the world won't be taken from us. we have to stand together. A melting down of society
The song "Thermal Anomaly" by Iyowa has been rolling around in my head since a few days ago. It's easy to feel like the world is falling apart... That there is a horrible apocalypse happening all around us, and in many parts of the world--there are real apocalypses happening. To say otherwise would be to turn a blind eye to those that we need to consider most.
The adults who unanimously longed for an eternal Utopia where everyone could be saved board a ship, just for it to explode,
--Translation by Spicy Sweets
We see people pray for safety, to be saved from the economy or the pandemic or from some great religious judgment--only to cause the fall of the ark they're so desperate to board because they were too busy making sure the undesirables weren't allowed the same privilege.
Reflecting upon the propositions in California illuminates the horrible cognitive dissonance of one of the most "progressive" states in the USA. Californians will happily spit on the red states in the "South", where the voices of its black populace are silenced and gerrymandered, while here we vote to legalize forced labor of prisoners. The eagerness to see criminals as a separate class, as subhuman, to exploit and destroy their human rights... I wonder if there will ever come a day where this changes.
Fundamentally, politics will always shift. Things will shift more right as more progress is made on the left, and vice versa, but it feels like every day we get farther and farther away from being able to see ourselves in our fellow man.