Alienation is my nation

This morning, it was finally time for the panel I had been dreading for months. It is something of a suicide mission to walk into a room like that and try to turn entrenched certainties upside down. But no – we do not need a “cultural shift” (which, by the way, is just a code word for other people becoming like us) to solve climate change. In fact, it is precisely this insistence on lifestyle politics that holds back compromise and effective action. It is also deeply counterproductive to stand atop a mountain of material affluence and declare that all that truly matters in life is what is free. Just in case you were wondering.

Perhaps it was the accidental effect of having a Slovenian panellist seated next to me, but at some point during my presentation I realized that I had slipped into full Žižek-overdrive when I, with an unmistakable accent, declared something like: “Oh my God – in an abstract sense, of course”. Yes, alienation really does appear to be my nation sometimes.

Now, I am waiting at the Santa Fe Depot for the Surfliner to take me back to L.A.