The noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

For some reason, reflecting on the rapid shifting of focus from two-years of Covid-19 to the two months of tyranny in Canada to the (so far) first week of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it brought to mind the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The relentless insistence that we should all be focused on some passing tragedy and that we all should concede to a greater coercive intelligence, veiled and obscured, at the center of the State.  

These cycles of existential catastrophism married with a utopian optimism that everything can be fixed if we merely forfeit our individual independence are an evil manifestation.

We need to reclaim the conviction of Age of Enlightenment conviction in the value and responsibility of individuals.