andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Some things that are hard and even involve a certain
> amount of tedious grinding are fun on balance. One of
> the most fun things I ever was involved in was helping
> to coordinate a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone campaign in
> Ann Arbor in the 1980s -- a year of tough,
> unremitting, 80 hour weeks, fundraising, signature
> gathering, door-knocking, fighting the city and the
> professional electoral hoods the University brought in
> to crush us -- we got hammered, too, lost 2-1. But it
> was a balst and I wouldn't have done otherwise for
> anything. Of course, I also enjoyed writing a
> dissertation and going through law school, so I'm no
> measure for anyone else. jks
>
Collective activity aimed at a collective goal tends to be fun; and on the rare occasions when it really explodes into mass activity, even if losing, there is nothing to compare to it. Not just fun but joy. As Justin says, "I wouldn't have done otherwise for anything."
In one of her books Arendt calls attention to some correspondence between Jefferson and Adams in which the question was raised as to what, if there were any such thing, heaven ought to be like. Jefferson thought it should be an endless Continental Congress in which one could partake of that supreme pleasure of persuading and being persuaded. Apparently some Athenians, apparently quite a large number of Athenians, got this joy out of their political activity.
One of the reasons for political burnout is that the activity can become addictive. It takes more and more to give the same thrill, and the withdrawal symptoms are then deadly.
That the woman who was the leader of LRS could no longer endure 90 hour weeks was one of the triggers (though not the cause) of the collapse of that organization.
Carrol