("Where do I begin," asked the nasty witch, cackling and chuckling to herself and throwing her mother's admonition: "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," to the wind.)
"...thus did industrialization beget a massive backlash..."
Let's start with that word--backlash--a favorite word of, for example, totalitarian feminist thinkers as they try to penetrate the inconceivable evidence that some people are not wholly on their side. "Backlash" attempts to contain what may be a RATIONAL CRITIQUE into childish game of crack the whip. Only crayola crayons and thick stick figures are necessary to address a backlash
Bravely the author of this essay, Brink Lindsey, battles his way through a forest of alternative viewpoints--blinkers firmly in place. Like Galahad, he rigorously maintains his intellectual virginity, manfully refusing to acknowledge the presence of the 800 pound cockroach scuttling around noisily in the corner.
Yes folks, along with those dreadful post enlightenment politicalbacklashes--Fascism and Communism (by the way, does anybody know why our President didn't finger the latter in his epochal speech? I do.) another system rose up to do battle with confusion, chaos, dislocation, longing for community, and love of toys.
And who might that be? Could it be that Mr. Lindsey does not see this fast-breeding, large-breasted (odd for a cockroach) THIRD member of the Holy Trinity of modernism because--and I blush to suggest it--he worships this diety and cannot conceive that anyone else on earth has any reservations about his deity?
With this little gem:"...Modernity thus came as a humiliation — a shocking realization that the local culture was hopelessly backward compared with that of the new foreign masters...." our hero attempts to shout down the shadows that are stalking him--tempting him away from a life of clean living, high thinking and sound investing.
The belief that envy motivates every person who rebels against the American Way Of Life is the ultimate juju bead in the arsenal of the Free Marketeer. No other possibility exists in his mind. Not because those possibilites are not there waiting to be examined, but rather because acknowleging the limitations of the Third, and most resilient godhead of the Enlightenement's Holy Trinity will unleash a new...a new....oh dear, say it ain't so....A new Enlightenment. A Great Leap Forward. Something unthinkable, indescribable to the Spenglerian "Matter Of Fact Man".
Self described "conservatives"--who are rejoicing at the "tough talk" of body bags, the "refreshing" secrecy of the military campaign, the lack of a declared war--how old fashioned--, the lack of a certain enemy, the "warm national "unity" dribbling over the country like...well...just like something that dribbles warmly--had better pause and ask themselves for whom the bell tolls. For whom is this "crusade" (that must not speak its name) being waged? Upon whose altar stone are we offering ouselves as sacrifices?
(by the way, does anybody know why our President didn't finger the latter in his epochal speech? I do.)
Eh, wot? I missed this part. Please elaborate.
The obtuseness, instead of shedding light begins to sound more and more like Marx and Engels on LSD.
First, it was a pleasure reading your post. Voulez vous coucher avec moi sur soir? ;-)
Could it be the altar stone of mammon ie: black gold? For certain western oil elites.
Conservatives have become quite a curious lot. They have been frenzied into a war fever, God forbid any one questioning their glorious leaders, after all, they are in a position of authority, presumed to have superior wisdom and access to mountains of information to justify all decisions. Who are we to question our elite. Most of the sheep have been conditioned to accept this reality. Institutionalized elites and their rabid media priesthood will remind us constantly of what we must think. They will demand more authority over our lives (Office of Homeland Security, national ID cards), to hell with your constitutional rights, its all for your own safety and well being. They tell you that all your problems will be best solved by the same thinking that created them. Not to worry, your corporate global elites and its hired military will inflict death and destruction upon the world, in the accepted course of blood for the remedy of blood. After all, the enemy hates you for your virtues, you are told. You are also told that this enemy hates your freedoms that you are willing to give up. You are told that this enemy is evil incarnate, who hate democracy and apple pie. Not to worry, the justice of total war with no seen enemy is now a righteous American cause, and that is ok, it will be a patriotic war with no end.
By the way Madame, why didn't Bush mention the wonderful ones? just wondering, kind of ;-)