Blame Michael Jackson (Spengler)

Asia Times ^ | Jul 14, 2009 | Spengler

[nickcarraway]

Public mourning for Michael Jackson crowded out other news last week, including the long-awaited papal encyclical on economics. Somehow that seems appropriate. Since 1985, this pontiff has argued that markets can be no better than the moral character of their participants. What we call "youth culture" for lack of a better word ...

The public's grief was unfeigned and profound, for Jackson embodied the desire of a generation, that is, never to grow up. Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray had a portrait that revealed his inner decay, and Michael Jackson had a nose. If one image captures the spirit of the times, it is that nose, which narrowed, shrank and finally fell in, in emulation of the failing youth of his fans.

They forgave Jackson his dysmorphia and even his alleged pedophilia, for Jackson only expressed in extreme form his generation's refusal to age. In his self-disfigurement and eventual

self-destruction, this fey child-man fought madly against maturity with a reckless abandon that his fans secretly admired. They loved him, not in spite of his personality failures, but because of them.

America's cult of youth persists, despite the rapid aging of its population. During the next 10 years, the country's elderly dependent ratio will rise to 25%, after holding steady for three decades at around 19%. Still, the baby boomers flee from the awful reality. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of cosmetic procedures per year rose tenfold, from 2 million to 10 million, according to the industry association. Its polling data states that 29% of Americans without children, and 24% of Americans with children, would consider plastic surgery.

In Beverly Hills, observes an economist of my acquaintance, there are five plastic surgeons who specialize in bodily rejuvenation, and women of a certain age reveal which one they patronize by the telltale

[parsifal]

A most excellent article. I notice this part:

Visiting Australia last year, he warned against treating his public celebration of mass as “a variant of modern youth culture, as a kind of ecclesiastical rock festival with the pope as the star”. The pope views rock concerts as an anti-cult, as he wrote in his 2000 book The Spirit of the Liturgy:

It is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe.

This is almost exactly what Ayn Rand said once in her Apollo and Dionysus article.

parsy, who is amazed at the congruence

[marron]

Another good one.

[Wilhelm Tell]

This is almost exactly what Ayn Rand said once in her Apollo and Dionysus article.

That was a great article. Rand did a wonderful job contrasting the two mentalities with the Apollo 11 moon shot and the Woodstock festival happening at the same time. Now followers of Dionysus have taken over many institutions, destroying them.

I will have to get the pope's book about the Liturgy. Now, sadly, many churches have an anti-liturgy where they play anti-music.

[Kenny Bunk]

Marvelous post from Nick,
Parsy, I am officially inviting you and Nick to our Spengler Conference in Aspen. After the first session, we're all going out for liposuction, and then getting the Spengler Gang tattoo.

In modernizing our group's image, we hope to attract many new members and thereby slow down the decline of the west and other bad things.

Jump on your Harley. Strap the old lady on the back, And....Think young!

[Spengler]

A Spengler tattoo? Cool. Being Jewish, I’m not allowed to have tattoos, but that doesn’t prevent other people from having them.

You might consider:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/images/spengler-forum-image-2.gif

and as a motto:

“It’s not the end of the world.
It’s just the end of you.”

[Kenny Bunk]

Actually, that link you sent was photo taken in the aftermath of the last Spengler Conference, held at the Holiday Inn of Bayonne, New Jersey.

The Conference was not a success in Spenglerian terms, although it did document the decline of areas west of Brooklyn, NY. Although it is not generally known, the Obama Administration has as a real objective. Obama wants to prove that old Oswald was a cock-eyed optimist, eine echt deutsche pollyanna. His team will speed up the decline of the west, and all other compass points, much more quickly than Spengler predicted.

Now as to the religious proscription you face in re the gang tattoo thing. Our rabbi says that a cockamamie, i.e., a temporary tattoo, would be permissible, as long as you ordered a steak at the lobster dinner