In an editorial about the American President-Elect today, The New York Times uses the expression “an id unmoored” to describe the man’s rants on Twitter. Apt. Apparently, unmoored ids hold a tremendous power of fascination. Perhaps because of yesterday’s session, they remind me of the “contagious” aspect of suicides in closed communities. As if once someone had crossed the line, others felt it was OK to follow suit.

So maybe less attention should go to unmoored ids? I don’t know. I simply note that every time one of the unmoored gets the power and attention he craves, others decide that’s the way to go. Until the great unthinkables come to pass, yet again.

This, written to the background of Svetlana Alexievitch’s monumental La Fin de l’homme rouge* most of which deals with the nineteen nineties (yes, as in perestroika, Eltsin, and the break-out of killings between Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Abkhazians, the rise of Putin, and so on.)

Far away, you say. Same as Turkey and Kurdistan and Syria. On the contrary. Terribly close once you move into the zone of the unmoored ids, and fall into the kind of hypnotic fascination and helplessness they instill in others.

*Svetlana Alexievitch, La Fin de l’homme rouge, traduit du russe par Sophie Benech, Actes Sud 2013.