Okay, okay, let's get the comedy out of the way first, because the pond was startled to see this not so far from the pond in McEvoy street Alexandria ...
That sets the tone from the get go ... you can almost feel prattling Polonius recoiling from the sight in horror and revulsion, should he ever happen to appear in the south or the west, where the pond is reliably assured dragons live.
It also helps set the pace.
Being the pond's Sunday meditation means the pond can dawdle and be expansive and embrace multitudes.
Forget a late arvo slot this day, and marvel at assorted diverse reptile offerings in a leisurely way, over a cup of coffee and in closing, a slice of krusty bread.
Of course for all the libertarian anarcho-syndicalist approach to freedumb, the pond must observe certain rituals, such as beginning with weirdly obsessive prattling Polonius ...
It was a most satisfying Catholic morality tale of suffering and persecution, rightly worthy of a Sunday meditation, involving mortification and lashings of SM ...
Well that's the religious service over, and so early in the day, and the pond looked around for a few bonuses, and suddenly discovered it couldn't go there ...
The pond has no idea who would fork over cold hard cash for this kind of cornball Hockey chowder, what a talkative clam he is, but here we are, and that's why the pond decided to settle back with something a little more akin to the usual reptile ranting ...
That's more like it, starting with a bang with guilt-trippers, apparently unaware that the Catholic church has been running a guilt-trip ponzi scheme for a couple of thousand years.
Never mind, PCT is a worthy substitute for CRT, offering all the usual clichés, including but not limited to the Enlightenment, postmodernism, and the persecution of the entirely innocent West, because as established long ago, the British in India brought civilisation to that hapless sub-continent ...
The correct theory is that Britain blessed India with lessons on how to be deeply civilised, which is to say, genuinely narcissist.
As proof, the pond was indulging in some ancient LRB toilet reading, and came across a piece about Robert Maxwell ...
...This sort of hubris leads to a belief in everyone else’s stupidity. Thatcher became contemptuous of once trusted friends and colleagues. Other great egos of our time – Philip Green and Conrad Black, for example – have had the same problem. Maxwell’s grandiosity reached such a pitch that he told the Mirror’s editor Roy Greenslade that a headline about Russian troops invading Lithuania must be wrong because ‘Gorbachev wouldn’t do anything without ringing me first.’ The only way to persuade him that a story about his latest inconsequential meeting with an East European leader shouldn’t run in the Mirror was to suggest it was too important for mere press coverage. But Maxwell wasn’t just hubristic: he was a narcissist. Much recent discussion of narcissism has concerned the selfishness inherent in the wellbeing industry, the desire for therapy, pointless consumption, celebrity culture and beautiful bodies. Maxwell’s understanding that his image, his version of his life, was more useful than the truth of it to some extent prefigured these developments.
Maxwell was narcissistic in the sense that he needed to assuage his insecurities not only by showing off but also by revelling in the humiliation of others. Why else did he let people watch him piss on pedestrians from the roof of his building – according to Preston, there was a gutter that onlookers couldn’t see. All this was mixed with a fear of dependence, leading to the repeated cycle of promoting lackies and then firing them. And then there was the simple pleasure of wielding power. Often mean and nasty to secretaries, he took particular delight in humiliating Peter Jay, whom he appointed his chief of staff, by giving him the most menial tasks imaginable. There are many reports of him delighting in publicly and casually telling people – including his wife and children – to fuck off...
And that led to this ...
...Philip Green – who also enjoyed spending the money his companies made – styled his birthday parties PG50, PG60 and so on. Narendra Modi – who has just named a cricket stadium after himself – wears clothing with pinstripes constituted from his name repeated in tiny gold letters. Maxwell had the letter ‘M’ woven into his carpets.
The pond felt blessed.
Western civilisation had given narcissism to the world, and the world had responded, as per Chandan Nody in the Times of India ...
How proud Nero and Caligula would have been, to see their western civilisation legacy so accepted and adopted ...
Can we now say with some degree of certainty that our prime minister has a narcissistic personality? Yes, indeed, if the monogrammed striped bandh gala suit with his full name Narendra Damodardas Modi in gold is any indication. Simply a sartorial sense of dressing or a reflection of a narcissistic mind? Or is it the image of a parvenu?
Long before his ascension to prime ministership, even as Gujarat chief minister, Modi tried an image makeover, especially after the 2002 Gujarat riots. And it was a very conscious move which deepened before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when he could sense, rightly, that he was well positioned to make a bid for prime ministership.
And soon after he took over the reins at the Centre, every move that he made was geared towards projecting himself. He did not allow dissent, he virtually shut his Cabinet colleagues up, drove the fear of the devil into them, sidelined the BJP’s old guard quite effectively and silenced the bureaucracy. All of this was aimed towards building a larger than life image of himself before the electorate.
But yesterday’s display of narcissism was of an altogether different level. Barring Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak – who was a tyrant anyway – no other world leader in the past or present, has ever worn a monogramed suit with his/her own name all over it.
According to political psychologists, charismatic leaders, which Modi surely is, at least among a section of Indians, often manifest the mirror-hungry personality, but as decision makers narcissistic leaders’ decision-making capabilities are often impaired. The narcissistic leader has difficulty accepting criticism and he may be overly optimistic concerning his possibility of success while underrating the adversary.
Modi displays these characteristics. Photographs of Modi embracing Barack Obama, gratuitous laughing, giggling or making unnecessary hand gestures or even wearing designer shades on a perfectly cold, foggy and rainy Republic Day were meant to tell the people of India on the kind of relationship that he enjoyed with the world’s most powerful man.
And so on, and what a relief that Enlightened Regency dandies spread their Enlightenment around the world ...
Alas while contemplating all this, the wonders and joys of western civilisation, the pond sort of lost its Kurti thread and so headed back for another dose ...
And so to the last gobbet, and perhaps some readers will be curt with this Kurti outing ... but not to worry, cultural relativism will score a mention ...
Has anybody kept count of how often this paragraph has been popped out by Polonius: "This is led by the ABC, Guardian Australia, The Saturday Paper, Crikey and The New Daily with support from sections of Nine newspapers (The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald). Then there is Network Ten's The Project."
ReplyDeleteIn short, virtually the entire 'mainstream media' other than the Murdoch rags.are "overwhelmingly hostile" to $loMo - the "whole pack of media cards is out to get him" as DP so poetically puts it. Just what has he done to deserve this ? Any suggestions ?
This is one of those things that the admirers of Judeo-Christian European Civilisation always want to ignore - From Kurti: "Certainly we must reckon with the past; but we must also recognise that our ancestors did not necessarily admire the principles that we value today." Now isn't that just wonderful: we must forever worship what our Judeo-Christian European ancestors did, even though we don't "admire" their principles because "we must not invest history with a moral value it is not capable of bearing."
ReplyDeleteOk, so no more of that Judeo-Christian European stuff then, eh ? Because, after all, the Judeo-Christian bit of that comes from Iesus Christos (aka "God's part three") himself, and what he ordained for us comes from eternal God part one (and maybe two ?) and we are supposed to have been obeying it faithfully ever since - or at least for the past 2000 years or thereabouts. So none of this "our ancestors were bastards but we're good folks" nonsense.
Besides, how far back does "history" go ? A decade, a century, a milennium ? To where we still have to admire them for what they created, but we can't blame them for anything because they just didn't understand Judeo-Christian values and morality ?
Well, Ms Tog-ninny reckons the question of how many nurses needed for good aged care is heaps more important than how much less CO2 (and methane) is needed for a habitable planet. Oh my, aren't "big and deep" emotions wonderful.
ReplyDeleteSo Hockey wants us to think that Trump knows how to lose gracefully. Everyone else who has written about Trump and golf said he is lousy cheat and a bad loser.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a recent election after which his graciousness was muted to say the least.
Just for the record, y’understand - Peter Kurti’s ‘Raging Against the Past: Guilt, Justice, and the Postcolonial Reformation’ (he does go in for looong titles. I guess he thinks that denotes extensive research) - anyway, this one is published by the Centre for Independent Studies, when, a f a i c t, his many previous tomes were brought into being by - yep - Connor Court.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the shift means Connor Court sees Kurti as less and less saleable, or if CIS is optimistic about sales. Having his work wave from the rigging of the flagship is something of an advance for Kurti - most of his key tapping makes it way to the limited readership of ‘Quad Rant’ or ‘Spectator’.
Yes, we know, limited in numbers, almost infinite in discernment, scholarship, insight and understanding of the human condition
I suppose they have to pass the loss makers around so that they all get their tax reduction. But then, maybe if you don't put in any serious editing work, and you don't have to pay for artistic covers etc and you can get, say, $25 per copy from 2500 wingnut regulars ($62,500) then you're probably doing ok.
Delete2500 casual sales is a bit high for Australia - and there is minimal interest in the detail outside this country - but there are wingnut politicians (all from one side, as far as I can see) who buy a few hundred of some of these er works to distribute around their electorate. All funded by the taxpayer, of course
DeleteYeah, I was reckoning that the faithful regular subscribers to Quad Rant and Aussie Spectator would come to the party together with a few hundred from the regulars for the Australian et al, but I guess you might be right - maybe it just depends on how many they're expected to buy each year.
DeleteThe 'electorate giveaway' is a beauty though - can get paid quite a bit, even counting bulk political discount, that way.
Had a lovely read today, though:
HOW GOOD IS SCOMO?! The PM's list of achievements keeps growing
https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/how-good-is-scomo-the-pms-list-of-achievements-keeps-growing,16252