#adam serwer

“The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Socrates: "Shall we begin, then, with Hestia, according to custom?"

The ancient Greeks had a saying: begin from Hestia. Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, and had the honor of receiving the first share of the offerings during religious rites large and small. "No divinity in the Greek pantheon radiated as much warmth as Hestia," writes Erika Simon in The Gods of the Greeks. "She was the divine personification of the domestic hearth. She was not just the fire; she embodied the entire household revolving around it."

Hestia was a sacred presence within every home, and is largely associated with homey things and with family life. There is a common misconception that Hestia was only associated with those things, and that she is somehow the "shy one" of the Hellenic pantheon, never leaving the house or getting involved in goings-on outside of it. But Hestia isn't just a household goddess; she's a civic goddess. Simon goes on to say that "She represented the center for human communities both large and small—communities of families, villages, and cities. " In ancient Athens, Hestia's statue dwelled next to the civic hearth inside the Prytaneion, along with that of Eirene (Peace). The community was understood to share a common hearth, a common center.

If it can be said that there are specific "Hestia values," things that she stands for, those things would include the sanctity of home and the simple joys and nurturance to be found there, kindness, humility, but also community, the offering of asylum, the sharing of meals and connection with others, with all. Above all else, Hestia stands for hospitality, a virtue treasured by the Greeks.

I live in the United States. Our nation is currently caught in a battle between the majority of us, who believe in those Hestia values and believe that immigrants are our welcome friends and neighbors, and a deeply evil government that is assaulting our cities, our rights, and our democratic institutions. The fascists would extinguish that symbolic fire that Hestia is goddess of, the fire that offers warmth and light to all.

I have been very troubled trying to imagine a path forward out of so much devastation and violence inflicted by the Trump regime and by ICE, its army of racist, rot-souled goons. I believe the resistance effort in Minnesota is showing us all the way. As Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic, “If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.” If we're to survive this current hellscape, we will need to do it by caring for and protecting our neighbors, all of them, no matter what. As one who honors Hestia, I see this as not only a good and necessary thing in and of itself, but also an act of devotion to her and all she represents.

Let's tend the light of our communal hearth and extend our ideas of what "home" means. Let's let that radiance shine from our individual hearth-fires to our neighbors next door, our neighbors in our towns, our neighbors who were born here, our neighbors who are immigrants, our neighbors in other lands who deserve to be free from the threats and insults of "our" government that does not represent its people and their true values.

Let's begin from Hestia.

Let's keep that fire lit and never let it go out.

Sources:

Socrates quote from Plato's Cratylus, translated by Benjamin Jowett (https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html)

Erika Simon, The Gods of the Greeks. Translated by Jakob Zeyl.

- Adam Serwer

“Prominent genre brands like Star Wars, or Marvel, or Lord of the Rings also have the difficult task of creating content for children while still satisfying their middle-aged stalwarts, whose nostalgia is ultimately insatiable because they cannot look upon novel material with the same emotional intensity they felt as children. Many older fans are convinced they can’t recapture that intensity only because the producers themselves have failed to create stories of the same fundamental quality, when in reality they have simply outgrown the sentiment they are chasing. These campaigns seek to convince this audience that the feeling they are pursuing can be recaptured, if only those making popular art would reject modern progressive dogma—thus creating a well of cultural resentment they can manipulate for political purposes.”