The American Ethos

From a true Patriot:

I wouldn’t die for my country, but I’d kill for it.

The most succinct expression of the contemporary American ethos I’ve heard in some while. This from an ardent defender of the nation-state’s continued primacy, no less: a chum who wished to remain anonymous lest his aspiration to find himself one day in a State Dept interview room be quashed by a simple Google algorithm.

The Best Class Evaluation I’ve Read Today

One purpose of this blog – I, with all the power vested in me by the triumvirate of WordPress, the United States Constitution, and a group of overly zealous folks who wish they’d been born in 1755 that call themselves the ACLU, have decided – is to serve as a cache of astounding (for their awkwardness), awe-inspiring (for their absurdity), and alliterative (for their, well, aural aff…effects: damn) quotes. And with that contrived preface, here we go with perhaps the greatest comment on a class evaluation I’ve read since “IT WAS JAMESTOWN, MOTHERF*CKER.” (courtesy of OrgTheory’s Kieran):

“Don’t insult the Scottish. We may not have preserved the written word during the Dark Ages but we are a proud people none the less.”

I’m really glad Scottish-American nationalism hasn’t risen to the levels of those Aberdeen OG’s. I mean beating up a little kid, okay, I get it, the punk deserved it, but a disabled guy to boot? God, do I hate identity politics. Granted, not so much as to surrender the Calzones, Tikka Masala, and Thai brunch that come with it. But, then again, what exactly constitutes Scottish cuisine?

On truth and farcehood in a vaguely moral sense

This blog isn’t about anything in particular. In fact, it’s resolutely purposeless – doggedly so – in order to reflect and inflect the hyperactive aimlessness of its author(s). A thought experiment for clarity: take a domesticated sloth, load it up with amphetamines (any serious stimulant will do), and plop it down in an advanced-undergraduate seminar on critical theory and social science methodology at NYU (or Columbia, depending on Cuddles’ geographic preference and verbal score on the SAT I.)

The fundamental guiding philosophy of this blog is that it – whatever it is, in its own deranged, socialized, and morally-bankrupt context – is all a farce. This is what happens when adolescent intellectualism (read: high-school ‘achievement’) collapses under the weight of collegiate disillusionment, but vague (and unjustified) feelings of superiority remain. Faith in the intrinsically absurd and contradictory nature of life achieves an intensity close to that of the First through Fourth Crusades (but overwhelmingly more genuine than those poseurs of the Fifth through Ninth and Northern Crusades.)

To this end, I’ll conclude this prologue with GK Chesterton’s response to The Times of London regarding the then-salient (since-discredited) question facing turn of the century Britain: ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,

G.K. Chesterton