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The Argument for Despair is Impenetrable

August 27th, 2024 | 7 min read

By Jake Meador

As we enter into the final stretch of yet another tedious election season it is worth considering the effects of the patterns of speech we tend to reliably fall into every four years—and patterns we increasingly struggle to leave behind after every fourth November.

The obvious corollary to the notion that we are facing "the most important election in our lifetime" is that despair is authorized if the result should go against us. Or perhaps the point is that any device we might use can now be licit given the gravity of the threat. Either way, I expect that we allow faulty premises to slip by too easily and then find ourselves attempting to triumph in an ultimately unwinnable argument.

As I continue to go back over the works of Wendell Berry, it may be that his example can offer us something when confronted by such language.

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Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).