Humor
Why We Burn
A Newbie’s Guide to Scandinavian Midsommer Bonfires And Burning Witches
By Christian Svanes Kolding
In olden times we burned witches on this very night, every year, but nowadays it’s an effigy. Why do we burn witches, you ask? Why do we burn women, that is?
Well, if you’ll agree to lend me a bit of your time, there’s always one person at the party who slowly but surely commandeers every conversation within arm’s reach to talk about ALL the things, which should depress us and instill us with fear and paralysis.
The rising dominance of totalitarian China, for example; the chaos of Putin; the inevitability of climate catastrophe; the arrival of the next pandemic; the resurgence of the extreme far right and white supremacy across the globe; crowded cities, income inequality; violent homophobia; falling fertility rates; cultural land grabs as well as the denial of narrative sovereignty; cancel culture, critical race theory, wokeness; the ongoing consolidation of power in tech corporations; digital surveillance, oppression by the police; modern slavery, the disappearance of the American middle class; corruption in sports, corruption in the art world, corruption in our supply chains, corruption in medicine and pharmaceuticals; the lack of choice in popular culture; and…
