Liberalist excess?
What, no prattling Polonius this day, you rogues, you varlets, you knaves, you preening charlatans?
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
Th' expectation and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!
No Polonius? Why then, it must be nattering "Ned"!
Offer not the tempting distraction of the oscillating fan, preaching despair, disaster and doom.
It's tempting, but he's a novice at the game. How could he offer a pious history explaining what little role religion once played in Ireland?
Don't think the Dupont baying at the Islamic caliphate a sufficient distraction.
Yes, we must invade the Philippines at once, preferably by noon tomorrow, but who could imagine this as a replacement for a treatise on the DLP in the 1950s, and an explanation of how Ming the Merciless cared for everyone like a benign Father?
Oh sure, there's the pained howl at the moon of the dog botherer on the suffering of the media:
Oh won't someone, anyone, pity the disrupted reptiles. Degutting the NBN didn't work? Shame, shame ...
And there are other worthies all strutting their stuff ... with Shanners diverted from Catholicism by the Canberra shivers - will she mention coal? - and Brendan thwarted, and only hole in the bucket Henry capable of understanding the perfidious French ...
And there were other pleasures, with the flogging of Malcolm continuing apace ...
But no, none of this had the charm and appeal of prattling Polonius, and so nattering "Ned" it must be ... and fortunately somewhere between the start and here, "liberalist" lost its "ist" and turned into the dastardly "liberal" ...
Now at this point, the pond always ritually apologises. Any journey with nattering "Ned" is like a fun run on a forty degree day. Readers drop like flies. Many remember an urgent need to rid the dog of fleas. Some prefer to stare off into space. Only brave hearts don the blue and take to the heath ...
The trip is only for the strong - the weak must fall by the wayside, the print is small, the rewards nil. The pond has laid in no visual distractions or pleasures or wayside stops.
Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain?
Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain?
This is equivalent to a bowl of porridge without the brown sugar or diluting milk ...
Right from the get go, it's all there, the chicken little suffering ...
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like moulten lead.
Okay, maybe that's a little overwrought, but what sayeth the reptile Lear? How teareth the world apart, what schisms can be found?
Oh you wretched cosmpolitans, you smart arses, you clever dicks, listen to heartfelt nattering "Ned":
A course more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves
To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain
To miseries enough: no hope to help you;
But as you shake off one to take another:
Nothing so certain as your anchors; who
Do their best office if they can but stay you
Where you'll be loath to be ...
Remember, any delusional who talks of the planet might well be a citizen from Mars, or perhaps Venus ...
Damn you cosmopolitan globalists ... forget the junkets and the travels abroad and the fancy airplanes. What need of a second Sydney airport, if you'd only stay in your bunkers ...
Damn you cosmopolitan globalists ... forget the junkets and the travels abroad and the fancy airplanes. What need of a second Sydney airport, if you'd only stay in your bunkers ...
Hmm, Kelly, forsooth that sounds like an Irish name? From a far away land? And Catholicism? Why dammit, that sounds suspiciously like a globalist religion based in distant Rome ...
No stay, it should be understood suppressing female sexuality and justifying homophobia are amongst the most cherished values of conservatives, and they are surely under dire assault by these wretched liberals ...
Oh for the good old days when a wog was a wog and a reptile knew where he stood ...
And now the pond has reached near the end of the road, and must speak sharply to the likes of Rowe, who have clearly precipitated nattering "Ned's" misery with their oh so clever mocking (and oh so much more cleverness here):
But now, having endured the bulk of meaningless rambling, the pond must now endure a short summary, on the classic principle of the essay format: introduce the way you will blather, then blather endlessly, then summarise the essence of the blather ...
What to say? Well there are other choices. Flea the dog, or stare at empty space ...
There was one comment that was short and to the point ...
There was one comment that was short and to the point ...
Indeed, indeed ...the pond has nothing more to add.
Why the cosmopolitan Shakesepeare was travelling in his mind to strange lands long, long ago ...
... Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth;
of earth we make loam; and why of that loam,
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
Why he might even be fixing up Canberra for Shanners at this very moment.
As for the planet? Well don't expect the muddled wombats - who pass as wise reptiles - to understand that you can never go back ...
Why the cosmopolitan Shakesepeare was travelling in his mind to strange lands long, long ago ...
... Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth;
of earth we make loam; and why of that loam,
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
Why he might even be fixing up Canberra for Shanners at this very moment.
As for the planet? Well don't expect the muddled wombats - who pass as wise reptiles - to understand that you can never go back ...
You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory. (here)
Nattering "Ned" might want to surrender to Rome, as some want to surrender to a new Caliphate, and both seek to enforce the ancient laws of goat and camel herders.
It's tedious idea, been there, done that, and not one that appeals to the pond, particularly when it involves such tedium and blathering angst ...and besides, there's the planet, on which everyone perforce must live, with at least one genuine bonus ...there are more papal insights available here ...
*whew* - that was truly an epic trek up the mystic mountain to hear Ned the Mad Hermit preaching to the winds from his cave, but it was worth it. Oh, it was dull and tedious, but there's a certain entertainment value in Ned's sermons these days, as his batshit hysteria continues to mount. I look forward to the publication of a collected edition in time for Christmas - I'd suggest "The Book of Apocalypse Pt 2" or "The Rhyme of the Ancient Scribbler" as possible titles.
ReplyDeleteA few specifics stand out - so Corbyn is "The most disreputable Labour Party leader since WW2"? Well, so far as I know nobody has yet suggested that he's a war criminal.....
Ned considers that there's an international schism that will doom us all that can't be explained through the traditional left-right divide. He then proceeds to analyse it through the traditional Reptile interpretation of a left-right divide, with the nasty liberal 'leets trampling all over the values of the poor vulnerable conservative traditionalists.
He also decries the current political environments in the USA and the UK. Strangely, there's no mention of the Chairman's fulsome support of both countries' present regimes. Funny, that.
I've no fucking idea who David Goodhart or David Hait actually are and I don't really care, but their citation seems pretty common Reptile practice; grab a couple of portentous - sounding works by self-styled "Authorities", crib their opinions and present them as fact in order to bolster your own thesis. Also useful in boosting your word count, too.
*sigh* - por old Ned. He may be a prophet without honour in his own country - but that's only because he doesn't deserve any.
How these cronies from Murdoch land can pontificate about the state of the world when what they write and say is dictated by their employer who is by any standard is just a bloody hypocrite telling others how to live their lives when this when we see how he has jumped from woman to woman.
ReplyDeleteA very Shakespearean commentary, DP, and much enjoyed. But do you really remember all those apposite quotations ?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we have "Ned" spouting: "The message from reasoned voices such as Goodhart and Haidt is the need to abandon the false morality that "my views are good and my opponent's view[ ] are bad"."
To which you respond: " ...the pond has nothing more to add" with which I agree except that I'd put an 's' at the end of 'view' so that it is at least grammatically correct.
But for any others who, like Anony above, know, and care, nought for Jonathon Haidt, I'd just like to append this passage about him from Wikipedia:
Wikipedia article on Haidt: "With Sara Algoe, Haidt demonstrated that exposure to stories about moral beauty (the opposite of moral disgust) cause a common set of responses, including warm, loving feelings, calmness, and a desire to become a better person. Haidt called the emotion "moral elevation", as a tribute to Thomas Jefferson, who had described the emotion in detail in a letter discussing the benefits of reading great literature. Feelings of moral elevation cause lactation in breast-feeding mothers, suggesting the involvement of the hormone oxytocin." [Just greghunt it]
Apart from noting that Jefferson was a slave-owning arsehole, I have never, ever noted a single Murdochrat reptile who exhibited "warm, loving feelings, calmness, and a desire to become a better person", have you ? Though one or other of them may have experienced expectant-mother lactation (but I wouldn't bet on it).