brettworks

• A conversation with historian Timothy Snyder.

“If we think about freedom as the task of government, we find ourselves in a much warmer and a much more prosperous place.”

• An essay on the disfiguring mentality of American exceptionalism.

“I find myself turning to a more thoroughgoing narrative: that Trump is the fulfillment of what America has always been — a self-satisfied nation, granted license by its myths about providence and exceptionalism to do whatever it wants. Trump didn’t come from nowhere, after all. His two victories were forged by choices made by Americans and the leaders they elected. If he had not existed, history would have invented someone like him. This explanation offers its own consolation. At least it is something a rational mind can grasp.”

“But in the course of his presidency, Trump has revealed a much older malady: America’s unshakable faith in its ability to shape the world to its liking, indifferent to what others might want and supremely confident that its plan is the right one. Beyond Trump, it’s this disfiguring mentality we Americans must face.”

• An essay about finishing.

“It can be helpful to think of finishing as bringing two parts of yourself into communication. The finishing half must give feedback to the starting half, and vice versa.”

“Finishing things the hard way is often valuable precisely because it’s weird in ways you can’t anticipate. Wrapping up any particular project can require learning things that are non-transferable, and acquiring skills for which you didn’t sign up. There might be a sense in which finishing, in general, is a skill you can build. But what you’re really developing is patience with the twists and turns.”