But in a way, I guess I believe that wishing for good things to be the case is always the prelude to good things being the case. It's not likely to be the case that good political situations can come about if there aren't people wishing that good situations come about. Not to go into my psychology, but I became a cynic after I was run down by a truck 10 years ago. I now know that a truck can always come at any time. Even worse, just 'cause you get struck once doesn't mean a truck can't run you down again.
Cynicism is self-protection.
That's certainly true. It's funny because what's a little startling is that our starting places are kind of the same. And in part I worked on it because I certainly wanted to attend to it before the world sent a truck and harmed me directly. One of the things the book starts out by simply saying is that beauty is not guilty of the political injustices it's been accused of. And it's not just that beauty is neutral with respect to justice.