Shortly after the 2016 Presidential Election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d had enough. The former Nike executive was so dismayed and disgusted by Donald Trump’s election that he moved to a remote pig farm near Glouster, Ohio and cut himself off from nearly every source of information about the world. He stayed away from radio, newspapers, the Internet, and most television shows except weather reports and sports contests, turning off the sound for the latter. And while he did mingle with friends and family members, they carefully avoided any references to current events. So the “man who knew too little,” as he was called by the New York Times, missed out on the mass shootings in Las Vegas and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He remained ignorant of the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville and the controversial statements Donald Trump made about them.  Even now, he knows nothing of the migrant caravan, of the Mueller probe, of the general turmoil within the Trump Administration, or the results of last Tuesday’s election (I’m assuming he didn’t vote).

Some have criticized Hagerman for taking a “head-in-the-sand” approach to life. “He can ignore the world all he wants, but the world keeps turning,” complains Tyler Buchanan, the editor of Glouster’s local newspaper. Some even take offense at Hagerman’s retreat from the world, noting that he has the financial means to stay aloof from problems that burden the daily lives of less-affluent people.  One on-line commentator griped that Hagerman’s “bliss comes at the cost of not being a member of the democratic republic of the United States” and “wouldn’t be possible without a lot of privilege and a lot of demands from family, friends, and strangers.”

I, for one, don’t begrudge Hagerman his retreat from America’s body politic. To my mind, what the disapproving commentator calls “The democratic republic of the United States” barely exists anymore. American politics has become captive to personal grudges, vicious rhetoric, and overinflated egos. It has become shackled by people who are jealous of those wealthier than they are, and by people who dislike anyone who thinks, acts, or looks different than themselves. Hagerman’s desire to avoid such people is perfectly understandable. But there is another reason why retreating from the news makes sense, a reason that may not have occurred to Hagerman. In avoiding all informational outlets, Hagerman not only sidesteps all the nastiness of American politics, he also remains untouched by the small tragedies that crowd the back pages of newspapers. The stories of Girl Scouts getting run over while picking up street trash; of three siblings, heading to a school bus, killed by a wayward truck; of floods and tornadoes sweeping whole communities away; of famines and plane crashes; of drive-by shootings, rapes, and kidnappings; of myriad other misfortunes that bring pain to the heart and tears to the eye.

I don’t think Hagerman is necessarily indifferent or insensitive to the large and small tragedies that fill daily news reports. He may just feel helpless to do anything about them, and rather than rant or rave or collapse into depression, he retreats to a haven where the pain brought by the news can’t reach him. Maybe someday, he’ll come off his pig farm and re-connect with the world. In the meantime, I’m going to leave him alone.