Monday, July 16, 2007

San Francisco Encounters

52-year old male vicar of the Church Of England looking for attractive female, 18-35 years of age, believer in objective truth and universal artistic and moral standards for outdoors fun and periodic cultural elevation from relativistic multicultural morass into reverance for a bygone era where faith and courage still mean something.

18-year old boy/girl/trans Chomsky reader looking for transfat/girl-boy/boyboy Ward Churchill reader for mutual masturbation session where everything equals everything else.

22-year old female keffiyah-wearing Mission district hipster looking for 20-30 year old male Palestinian suicide bomber for harsh dose of reality.

PRELUDE:

"Why do we have to have borders to be a nation?"
"I don't know. . .let's get a fucking dictionary. I mean, why do we have to have three sides to make a triangle?"

THE UNIDIRECTIONAL FOCUS OF POSTMODERN RELATIVISM AT PLAY IN OUR WORLD:

EXHIBIT 1: RELATIVISM

"Man, did you hear about these assholes in Iraq that stoned this little 17-year old girl to death because she married outside of her religion?"

The relativistic answer:

"Well, you have to ask yourself how much of that America had a hand in."

EXHIBIT 2: HYPOCRISY

"Man, I hate this fucking country--we cause so much bad shit to happen!"

The non-relativistic answer:

"Fucking A. Nice keffiyah, Carol."

THE UNIDIRECTIONAL FOCUS OF "LARGER CONTEXT" AT PLAY IN OUR WORLD:

"You see, the reason that there are terrorists is because America is creating them by their presence in the Middle East."

One direction, you see. Now try it the other way around--

"You see, the reason for the American presence in the Middle East is because there are all these terrorists."

Not quite.

I've given up on trying to convince people that right and wrong are objective moral truths. Why bother in a world where it doesn't matter anymore that Winston Churchill saved Western Civilization from Jew-murdering fascists? All that matters anymore is that Winston Churchill was an imperialist. You see, minorities will always be historical victims and therefore have NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER ABOUT ANYTHING. And although Churchill was a product of his time as well--born into the Victorian age where Queen and Country were revered above all else--there is no absolution in this regard. Churchill cannot be forgiven. Cannot be forgiven primarily because he succeeded. And even more so because he did not apologize for succeeding. Churchill would have stood a better chance at surviving into popular culture had he flagellated himself upon achieving victory in WWII.

I can imagine the rewrites: "This is your victory," says morally-relativistic Churchill, "it's important to remember that this might not have been entirely just and we may have inflicted just as much damage on the Nazis in a lot of ways and so this day isn't really a day of celebration, but a day of sadness, because whenever one life is lost--that's just a sad day. You see, I was going to raise my fingers in a "V" for victory, but now I realize that's just my own white privilege telling me to do that and I think what we need most of all right now as a nation that's just been through a horrible war is a day of healing. . ."

The sexiest picture ever? VJ day, Times Square. The vet and the nurse.

The babies in their diapers want the balls of the heroes on a platter. That way they don't have to aspire to anything. That way, they don't have to feel conflicted as they groove to their iPod and rail against the "corporate machine". That way, they don't have to feel bad about not knowing a fucking thing about historical fact because facts hurt. Feelings, not facts. History is one big feeling. . .one big emotion. . .whining. . .mewing. . .

"Cut your balls off and throw them in the dumpster. . ."

Right and Wrong are gone. Good and Bad are defunct.

Perhaps we still have a chance to save Better and Worse.

There is a cancer in the ideology.

Objective truth? Relativism needs to be phased out. We need a pulse again.