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hypocrites is the wrong word
Daniel A. Foss (U17043@UICVM.BITNET)
Tue, 8 Nov 1994 21:17:10 CST
as Normal Natives; what else could you, plural, have done, considering. The
egalitarianism is, of course, authentic, reflective of a wasted life of vice,
immorality, and turpitude, which I needn't go into again. But the method is
to imagine an alternative or future society whereby this one may be imagined
in comparative or historical perspective.
The latter, I should think, is objectively realistic, in terms of the data
of the historical record: As suppoitious time-immemoriality is imparted to
a set of transitory social arrangements via the miracle of culture, so likewise
is figmentational eternality. Elsewise, why get through the day.
The record shows that nothing has lasted. Anyone want to propound an
argument as to why this Case Study here should be the exception? Max Weber
tried it, to be sure; and one can admire his resolute faith in Western Ration-
ality throughout World War One, characterized by Ilya Ehrenburg as "a well-
equipped factory for the extermination of mankind," as he scribbled away at
his life's project. But then, again, poor Max had spent half his adult life
in and out of the looney bin.
Speaking of time-immemoriality, what happened to the war thread, which had
so neatly obliviated mention of the warrior role until yesterday? More than
one participant in that thread, I fear, appears to have sustained some sort
of magical dread that, should the existence of the warrior role be admitted
for the past, it would fatally undermine our revulsion anent war in the
present. But how can you omit the warrior role yet explain how the Middle
Ages were so mid-Evil?
Daniel A. Foss
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