Society of the Cynical

Whether you are Joe the Plumber, Joe Sixpack, or someone "clinging to his guns and bible", you want to be aware of the Spectacles frightening power to turn you at once into Everyman and NoMan and the often tragic results that may result. Becoming the symbolic centerpiece of the culture war can have unhapppy results and whether Andy Warhol understood this or not, it is often better to just lead "lives of quiet desperation" than stare into the klieg lights and find yourself stripped naked.



Apart from the destruction of a particular life though, this may prove to be an unusually instructional episode as Joe's beliefs (with their symbolic value) are scrutinized and de-constructed. I paraphrased Adorno a few posts back on the subject of self-repression but Joe has forced me to dig up the quote: "As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than the rulers themselves, the decieved masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Imovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them." Joe, though delinquent in his own tax payments and struggling to make ends meet, is fierce in his opposition to the concept of "redistribution of wealth". As are the masses in general. The true "key to consent is getting sub-altern classes to auto -repress, to forge their own mental manacles out of their own best hopes." A perfect example of that "molecular, integral, invisible control" of the modern state system Debord explained.

"In every cry of Man, in every infants cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban, the mind-forged manacles I hear." William Blake

Now we have Hank Williams Junior singing an anthem to Sarah Palin. Hank lives nearby and personifies the "good old Boy" mentality which pervades our rural idyllic. (and I do mean Boy, men who never will or can grow up) Country Western music is a tool of the ruling class to keep the outback mythologized (nationalism, paternalism, anti-intellectualism, etc..) and helplessly sentimental. They really are "clinging" because they are losing all bearings.

As modern society Slouches Toward Bethlehem, I am Fishing Through Meltdown, taking my own advice and hitting the stream everyday during this glorious fall. The tangible benefit of being an expert flyfisherman ( my real gift) is I can pick off the biggest fish sipping the smallest flies in the quietest, shallowest water. Too much fun. Think I'll do it again today. As Bob says : Too much is always better than not enough!"