MaxedOutMama
Saturday, October 29, 2005
The Anchoress, Unchained
The Anchoress authors one of the best essays I have seen on our current cultural morass:
Believing that the rest of us, now disillusioned, are no longer clinging to romantic ideals of honor, or truth or nobility, these always-restless First Children, devoted to deconstruction, believe they are about to take down the presidency, the churches, the “old” government and even the “old” media. They expect to put into place something “brand new.” But believe me when I tell you what they are building is older than dirt. And up from it. Which is why they will need their fortresses. Castro lives in one, too.That's just a taste. Read it.
They’ve been practicing all of this, by the way, perfecting the Art of the Painless Coup so thoroughly that most ordinary folks do not even realize what has occur(r)ed.
Over the past 40 years these hyperactive First Children have been pulling off small scale coups with varying levels of success. They managed to deconstruct the academies, so that education is less a broadening of knowledge than a narrowing of perspective. They have deconstructed the liturgy to insist that a pantomime in clownface is a vast improvement over 2000 year-old sacrament and liturgy. They have deconstructed government by constructing something so huge and unweildly that nothing coming out of it is reliable or dependable, and almost no one is accountable, either. They have deconstructed the press to the point where the truth of a story is less important than how it may be framed and spun. They have deconstructed the idea of fascism to mean “those democracies in Israel and America” rather than the freedom-suppressing regimes which surround them.
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It is a great post, on many levels. I especially liked her tone- less strident, but forceful enough, and inclusive.
It's an absolute keeper.
It's an absolute keeper.
No one does this sort of thing better than the Anchoress. She nails the cultural wackiness up there for us all to contemplate....
She really knows how to get my testocerone flowing :)
I really liked the part about the enlightened drum-circle lesbian.
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I really liked the part about the enlightened drum-circle lesbian.
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