What Double Standard Are You For?
One can find over at Lance Mannion http://lancemannion.typepad.com/ some of the most trenchant writing about the decadent anti-feminist and racist symbolism that’s being employed by McCain-Palin as this presidential campaign enters the home stretch.
Decadence as a literary term means the adoption of old ideas and manners—the trotting out of tired material. Writers who do this hope to God that their readers will be sufficiently uninformed about literary history that they’ll fail to notice the mediocrity of the enterprise.
Lance Mannion, being a literary writer, sees how the McCain-Palin crew is working the engines of decadence for all their worth. I particularly like Lance’s observation that by associating Obama with the Weathermen—a radical group that most Americans probably can’t remember, the McCain campaign hopes to implant the idea that Obama is a direct descendant of one of those other “hard to remember” groups from the 60’s—the Black Panthers. You see the drift. If you’re using decadence and your audience likes it well you can just employ as much phoney symbolism as you like. There’s no bottom to that ditch.
Lance’s most recent posts are the best things I’ve seen on this nauseating and dangerous enterprise.
In the meantime I find myself growing more alarmed and humorless by the day. Last night I watched with horror as Minnesota Republican RepresentativeMichelle Bachmann asserted on the Chris Matthews Show that liberals in Congress should all be investigated to determine whether they are supporters of
America
. See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/
Fascism relies on decadence both in art and in its symbolism. In turn I’d like to suggest the re-application of the dunking stool for Rep. Bachmann.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 