Someone wrote that if you were a mile away from the Battle of Hastings (October 1066), you not only couldn’t hear any of it but unless you were in direct line of sight you wouldn’t know it was happening.
Similarly, a current attempt (so far unsuccessful) to overthrow our freely-elected government also probably could not be heard a mile away, with the flash-bangs and occasional gunfire subsumed within the noise of traffic and commerce.
Within a mile of the Capitol are thousands of businesses and homes connected by busy streets and highways. A man or woman coming off shift and burrowing within his or her own peaceful thoughts while enjoying a book or podcast over a light supper might well do so without hearing or even hearing of the crude grasp for illegitimate power by a man urging his followers into dubious tumult from the safety of a glowing screen in his bunker.
And that is because life goes on. In his A Preface to Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis writes,
“In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he [Satan] could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.”
And it is the joys of light, love, song, feast, and dance that are important. An omelette and a cup of coffee might be a feast enough for someone who is going on shift or off shift, and a book to discuss with a friend later is a feast of the intellect, a dance of the Poirot-ish Little Grey Cells, a celebration of light, while the nimble waiter’s excursions among the booths and table are a dance indeed.
Any man, even a president, who withdraws into an unnatural obsession with his feelings and moods, hugging to himself all the satanic resentments that poison his mind and heart, is leading himself into a nothingness. He would resent the idea that no one would mourn his passing, but more than that he would be shocked that he would not be missed at all, no more than anyone would miss an earache or an abscessed tooth.
Those who live in light, love, song, feast, and dance celebrate civilization, and want to share the joy, not grasp it selfishly. If the good among us cannot hear the self-wounding bellowings of those who have broken faith, it is because they hear the stronger and more joyful voice of truth.