Lionel Shriver on Getting Everything You Ever Wanted
I have met so many people in my life who have held political beliefs which, if successfully implemented, would utterly ruin their own lives and their societies. Take a moment to imagine one such person in your life. The one that comes to mind for me is a former colleague: A transgender, pro-Hamas, Jewish person who supported open borders, defunding the police, and abolishing prisons.
Now, take a moment and imagine that this person gets what they want. I imagine something like October 7th, but playing out in the streets of New York, and ending only when every visible sexual minority is dead by torture, every woman has been raped, and the bodies of Jews lie mutilated in the streets.
There is a part of me, dark and vengeful, that hopes people who have self-destructive beliefs get everything they dream of. Flashes come to mind of the far left vilifying me, trying to get me fired, filing complaints with the diversity office claiming I beat my children, sending me death threats, and I think: Why am I trying to help them? All it would take for them to realize that everything they have ever believed was wrong is to get everything they’ve ever wanted. Why should I stand in the way of that?
Lionel and I wrestled with this question for a good part of our conversation.
