It began with Aubrey asking Andrew why he didn't vote in the 2004 election. Andrew replied that he did not believe in the power of electoral politics to affect fundamental changes in the social structure, and felt that voting was only one very limited method of political participation. And from there the conversation grew, with all of us talking about alternative ways that politics could be practiced, communities formed and governed, so that truer expressions of human freedom and equality than the ones found today might emerge. 

All of us in the circle had visceral experiences with cruelty and intolerance, and undergirding our theoretical conversation was an undeniably pragmatic darkness. And we all knew that while we could think about new social forms and practices, the type of struggles we faced would not be ameliorated if people would not listen to us and to each other. We converged on the same point: that no amount of institutional reform could save a nation without a change in the character of the people.

For not only is it not enough that the new blood, new frame of democracy shall be vivified and held together merely by political means, superficial suffrage, legislation, &c., but it is clear to me that, unless it goes deeper, gets at least as firm and as warm a hold in men's hearts, emotions and belief, as, in their days, feudalism or ecclesiasticism, and inaugurates its own perennial sources, welling from the centre forever, its strength will be defective, its growth doubtful, and its main charm wanting.

For democracy to work, people must learn trust, communication and tolerance. They must be repelled by any and all injustice as though it affected them directly. It was not long before Jaan pointed out that most people do not act this way and do not share those values. He said that he is an activist for trans rights because he believes that legislative changes can make himself and the people he loves safer. But he does not believe that people change or that an ideal world is worth thinking about. When he looks at people he sees people motivated by fear and hatred, with all of their drives dominated by selfishness. Growing up trans in a small conservative town in Texas where he was marked out as inferior and disposable, I am sure that he was thinking back to very specific and painful incidents that in his mind proved this point beyond doubt.

Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believ'd in, (for all this hectic glow, and these melodramatic screamings,) nor is humanity itself believ'd in.

I listened, and for a large part I agreed: that the world as it is often gives very little material to inspire hope. But I did not believe that Jaan was as hopeless as he said.  I had seen the important work he did every day, and the causes he worked for. I knew, or at least thought, that the ideals of his organization were not just about emerging from tough places with as few scars as possible, but also about tolerance and equality for all. Surely even someone who fights for survival dreams of a time when they will not have to - and not merely because he can depend on the police to act quickly and harsher against those who would do him harm, but because he lives in a world where he is no longer an object of scorn or fear. And even if he does not see such a world in any adjacent future he believes in the possibility of a world where intolerance does not define the day to day lives of any group.

The great word Solidarity has arisen. Of all dangers to a nation, as things exist in our day, there can be no greater one than having certain portions of the people set off from the rest by a line drawn -- they not privileged as others, but degraded, humiliated, made of no account

Jaan replies that he believes in these ideals himself, but does not bother to imagine times or places where all believe with him. It does no good to think of such worlds because they simply cannot exist. Dreaming about utopias will never help, so instead we should just focus on getting by. There is no perfect world.

The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable, to counterbalance the inertness and fossilism making so large a part of human institutions. The latter will always take care of themselves -- the danger being that they rapidly tend to ossify us.

The conversation ended up getting heated. We stopped it, and moved on to easier topics. But I was pretty shaken by Jaan's pessimism. I think I was so intent on arguing, for once, not because it mattered that I was right in the sense of superior reason. I could not accept that Jaan could be right because I truly did believe, with him, that the character of our nation as it is today leaves no room for genuine democracy, freedom or equality. But the work that I do and plan to continue doing would be meaningless if I was not animated by a sense of justice and a world free of domination. If Jaan was right, and people could not change and could never learn solidarity against suffering or tolerance for the great plurality of human kinds, then no amount of politicking or organizing would ever matter.

And so I thought about it all afternoon. I questioned the premise that motivates all of the work I see as most important  Do I truly believe that justice can replace selfishness and fear as the fundamental motivator in human life?

I did. And I do. But I have no reason to. There is no evidence I've seen to convince me that people can overcome egotism and learn to live for each other. No evidence could ever prove such an extraordinary claim. But I could not accept that it is not true. What he have now does not work. There is too much misery in the world for me to accept that this is as good as the world can get. I can not bear the idea of living in a world where poverty, war, misery, discrimination, hatred and fear are inescapable facets of existence.

And so, as Kierkegaard did, I leap to faith. It may be absurd but I believe that people can change and a better world can be enacted because life demands that I do. I have no other answer.

Not for nothing does evil play its part among us. Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy, peace walks amid hourly pitfalls, and of slavery, misery, meanness, the craft of tyrants and the credulity of the populace, in some of their protean forms, no voice can at any time say, They are not. The clouds break a little, and the sun shines out -- but soon and certain the lowering darkness falls again, as if to last forever. Yet is there an immortal courage and prophecy in every sane soul that cannot, must not, under any circumstances, capitulate. Vive, the attack -- the perennial assault! Vive, the unpopular cause -- the spirit that audaciously aims -- the never-abandon'd efforts, pursued the same amid opposing proofs and precedents.

And now I am left to live with my faith in justice and the utopia of human communion. But in realizing my faith is just that I must accept that I can never convince people like Jaan that my vision should be theirs. There is no reason or proof that validates my decision. I think that the best I can do is to live my conviction in the sense of James, so that the very enaction of my belief will bring about the condition of its verification. I will never know if the world can be transformed or if justice can prevail. The best I can say right now is that I will live as though it can in hopes that doing so will make it true.

We have frequently printed the word Democracy. Yet I cannot too often repeat that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawaken'd, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted (Whitman, Democratic Vistas).

At present it seems impossible to deny that we are lost, and there is no obvious path to utopia. But I refuse to live in a world where we must accept that we are always to remain lost. Instead we march forward with what little light we can produce, and as the saying goes, we make the road by walking.