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What gifts hath Fate for all her chivalry? Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win; Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death. Not sure I entirely agree with Homer. Anguish, yes, but we will endure. Not because we believe in an inevitably better future, but because we believe in living a better us.

I do not believe progress is inevitable. That there is some ever-perfectible future we are all heading inexorably towards. Instead, “life is just one damned thing after another.” There is no inevitability about anything.

The question of how we should respond to ethno-fascism is no different to the question of how an agnostic should respond to questions of ethics.

As Hillel the Elder posited, what the devout can learn from the moral behaviour of an agnostic is that if the only reason you behave ethically is out of fear of the retribution of a deity, then you’re probably not a very moral person.

It’s plain that Trump and his millions of supporters have no fear of whatever deities they claim to believe in. If the only reason they never expressed violent bigotry was their fear of consequence, no amount of compromise was ever going to change their minds.

But what of the rest of us? If sacrificing ourselves to an unyielding moral purpose does not inevitably lead to a progressive future? What if our sacrifice is not a brick along that road, but simply a stone amongst other stones, randomly scattered to no greater end?

Instead, yield to moral purpose because you believe in a better you. A better me. The better angels of our own unique and irretrievable person, even if we are the only ones who believe in it. Do it for you. Be the change you seek.

I will not yield myself to violence, bigotry, or fear, not because I believe a brighter future is possible, but because I will be who I am despite the darkness. I have lived a life of anguish. A life of pain. But I will not cause anguish. I will not cause pain. Neither will I turn the other cheek.