With the stakes that high I don’t suppose the give and take will be either pretty or civil.

Who can say? The problem with predicting the future has always been the fact that it is truly new. There’s something in it that is not contained in the present; and in a complex system that new thing can make all the difference.

The best thing about the current crisis is that it reminds us that we are not at the End of History. Come to think of it, that would have been a terrible place to go. The Left for some strange reason yearns for a final disposition. There has to be an end to leftist history for that kind of history to exist. It’s a story with a hard requirement for a last act. A human drama with no end would be one in which the Party would be a passing thing; and not the author of the play itself.

The price of living on earth is the need to wait around and see what happens next. Given that we have no choice, then perhaps the best thing is to dive in. To do our best; to make mistakes. To use our freedom knowing that freedom doesn’t guarantee happy endings. It only guarantees that we live as men.

That’s a pretty long winded way of arguing that the City on a Hill occasionally redevelops itself, with all the inconveniences it entails. But in the end it’s best to be living in that City — where the lamps and fires are lit against the night.