Truth in the House

Beagle's post reminded me of a rerun of the TV show "House" I saw the other day.

In it, Dr. House, having been (temporarily) cured of the crippling leg pain that has come to define him, finds himself strangely devoid of meaning. His friend Dr. Wilson puts it to him this way:

"I didn't say it was rational. HIV testing is 99% accurate, which means there are some people who test positive who live with their own impending doom for months or years before finding out everything is okay. Weirdly, most of them don't react with happiness or even anger - they get depressed. Not because they wanted to die but because they've defined themselves by their disease. Suddenly, what made them them isn't real."

I think it's that way for a lot of people on the left. I think a lot of this "eh, it's hopeless/it doesn't matter/the Democrats will screw this up/the Republicans will just outflank us again" defeatist talk, on the face of it kind of incongruous after a historic Democratic election victory, comes down to something similar--so many of us have defined ourselves for so many years as underdogs, perpetually in the minority. Cassandras. I think for a lot of people it's disorienting and upsetting to have to rethink such a fundamental point of political identity.

Me, I don't have that problem. I love not finding election results depressing. But, there you have it.