January 5, 2013 - 11:00 am
So, I say – break the cycle. Speak real truth to power. Write of war and evil, sure, but as human ills, and not as the result of the unique badness of Western Civilization (or civilization) or capitalism, or affluence, or industrialization. Dare point out that while humanity has had savages aplenty, few of them were noble. Dare point out that while civilized man can be conventional, conventional behavior is often decent and moral and better for everyone.
Smash fake intellectualism. Speak truth to power. Dare write of individuals who can and do control their destiny and make things better (or at least try to.)
Read the whole thing.
But mightn’t that…immanentize the eschaton?
I am sure you are trying to be funny, I can’t figure our how yet.
It’s kind of an inside joke, the John Birch Society via Illuminatus!
If you don’t see the fnord, it can’t eat you.
I mean, is he only attempting irony in contrasting fighting for improvement with wanting to bring about the end times? Or is he only badly echoing Buckley doing that, who rightly accused the left of utopianist thinking?
And Rossignol. Eris said go to your closet and paddle yourself off.
Perhaps a brief vignette will make it clearer, Tom. One fine day not long ago in Great Britain, in the hallowed chambers of the Old Bailey, a young lawyer was expounding a point of law to a trio of senior judges. They were disposed to listen at first, but the young barrister droned on and on, apparently oblivious to the judges’ mounting impatience. Finally the senior judge lifted a hand and loudly cleared his throat, which brought the young lawyer to a halt. “Yes, Your Lordship?” he said.
“Young man,” the judge said, “you have broken the Fifth Rule: you have taken yourself too seriously.”
The young barrister was thunderstuck. Cringing with embarrassment, he slunk back to his table and began to seat himself, but then turned back to the senior judge and asked, “But if it please Your Lordship, pray tell, what are the other rules?”
The senior judge smiled beatifically. “There are no other rules.”
(/rimshot)
Thing is, that would mean I was taking you too seriously…
/sting
My mistake Francis. I was taking Mrs. Hoyt seriously.
But she, too, is subject to the Fifth Rule, Tom. We all are.
Mrs. Hoyt is a nice lady and a middling-decent storyteller. I have nothing against her. But I dislike to see anyone, particularly someone I like, take himself too seriously, particularly when the subject is a form of entertainment. Pretty soon you start to think you matter, that your opinions count for something, that people should actually listen to you. You develop a tendency to become huffy when some poor benighted soul with no sense of your stature dares to blow you off. You have more and longer-lasting snits. And all of it is avoidable! As a true master storyteller, Eric Frank Russell, said in his award-winning novella “And Then There Were None:”
We are greatly afflicted by persons who take themselves too seriously. Many of them get an excessive amount of attention from the media. Rare in our time is the public personage who appreciates the exquisite balance dictated by the Fifth Rule. There are a few, but the majority have promoted themselves to Anything Authorities — Jane Fonda is their prototype — and declaim at length about all manner of things outside their demonstrated competence. The worst offenders are, of course, politicians, but they have a host of emulators.
I dislike even to contemplate the possibility, but if — if, I say! — the eschaton is indeed immanentized in our lifetimes, they’ll get a goodly share of the blame. And we’ll share it, for taking them too seriously.
As H.L. Mencken has said, most of the problems of Mankind could be endured far more easily if we could only contrive to keep the entire human race “gently stewed.” Laughter comes more easily in that state…especially the most important kind: laughter at oneself.
Blessed is he who helps you laugh at yourself! Among other things, he helps to keep your bar bills down.
I think Mrs. Hoyt said something that needs saying very well. Where in what she wrote will you assert she was taking herself too seriously?
Or do you think she just shouldn’t have brought it up?
That he took so many paragraphs to say nothing is an answer in itself.
O.K., expand the paradigm…here goes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHySHAyBrTQ&sns=em
Kabuki Theatrics, by We The Elite People of culture of corruption in Washington DC. Pure, smoke-and-mirrors. The real stories and alerts are seen, reported and flagged for dissemination by an alert citizenry. Need proof??? View this video.This is the latest!
Remember, a Chinese consortium is now operating out of Long Beach, CA’s naval building yards. This same consortium has supplied AK-47′s to Oakland street gangs. Do the math!!1) Long Beach Naval Yard, 2)large numbers of military hardware amassed just across Laredo, TX’s border and3) cozy relationships with Iran and Venezuela allowing installation of missile systems (in Venezuela).
Vigilance! This administration hates The USA’s Constitution, “Rule of Law” and Legislative branches of governing. Wants to govern by mere”FIAT!” This will be a total reversal of everything Our Founding Fathers fought for and sacrificing their livelyhoods. Obama wants an America pre-French Revolution. Well, seems like he’s quietly gearing-up for a major civil war. Pray. Amen. Darn, just like ‘ol Honest Abe’s Emancipation Proclamation…his usering in a bloody civil war,too. Washington DC Elites are literally “shakin’-in-their-boots” what with “so much consumin’ goin’ on,”i.e., weapons purchases by americas citizenry.