“To the Person Sitting in Darkness” (1901)

I appreciate Mark Twain’s anti-imperialist rant, which reminds me of nothing so much as the most passionate bloggers (on either side, I guess) during the Bush/Cheney era. That’s not exactly a compliment because it’s also acknowledgment of spittle-flecked incoherence and, sadly, more than anything, of powerlessness. Twain may have been able to kick up some fuss about the Boer War, Spanish-American War, etc. But it didn’t change what happened, such as the betrayals of Filipinos. Putting the best light on this piece (and on bloggers from the 2000s too) it may have had some effect on policy going forward. Certainly being right is not worth nothing. But in another era with great depredations occurring and too little to be done about it, Twain’s complaints make me sad more than anything. Terrible things had been going on already for a long time in 1901, and the US was hardly innocent of some of the worst even then. The problem is that he’s so angry he shifts often into sarcasm and invective that does not much help his case. I like this piece as an early example of the blogging style but, as with so much op-ed on outrage, the first draft should be a venting exercise and then set aside or at least carefully cherry-picked. But sometimes you’re just too mad to do even that. I write this as someone prone to such screeds myself—and publishing them too, on my blog and elsewhere if I could. What’s to be done? People are terrible. They are good too but way too often terrible. The Boxer Rebellion in China is also an event of importance in this rant. He roams about among the three—Boxer Rebellion, Boer War, Spanish-American War—and there is plenty to be outraged about, as the modern American foreign policy was beginning to take shape, among other things. There’s always plenty to be outraged about, isn’t there? I like the way this ties Twain to people like Hunter Thompson and Matt Taibbi (in his better days) as ranters of renown. But Thompson and certainly Taibbi—and a lot of those bloggers—aren’t always looking so good these days. Ineffectual, at best, or it’s tempting to look at it that way. For what it’s worth Twain was older than I am now when he wrote this. I appreciate it but have you seen the one I did about Trump and “The Snake”? Some really choice outrage there. And nothing changed. Or very little. I’ll be over here crying now.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over (Library of America).
Read essay online.