> > Max Sawicky wrote, > > > > >shagging debutantes. The bottom line is they > > >can't stand to think about their own lives and > > >the real problems of the mundane world, so > > >they are drawn to fantasy. > > To which Tom Walker, in a rare moment of unalloyed yeehaw, replied: > > > I couldn't agree more. > > Really now, gents, must the opposite of A always be Z? > It seems to me that the left has suffered some pretty bizarre > cults of personality in its time. Can't the admiration of > a famous person's good qualities be accepted as more than > a subconscious evasion of one's troubles? > Generations of black children have been given George Washington Carver > as a role model (no points for _de rigueur_ tirades about his name); > would you prefer they get Farrakhan or Shaque O'Neill? > > Get the idea? I think so. Your point about the public's identification with the good qualities of a famous person is well-taken, but in this case problematic. One has to ask whether we've crossed the point where the imagined proportion of goodness has far outstripped the real part, as well as where the superficial and salacious features of a personality (e.g., tall, blonde, beautiful super-babe making a clean breast of it, so to speak, from balconies) actually are the locomotive for public sentiment and the alleged good works are the caboose. The contrast with Mother Teresa, whose good works by bourgeois criteria are at least on a par with Di's, is obvious. Cheers, MBS P.S. Loved the Harry Hopkins quote, irrelevance notwithstanding. ================================================== Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===================================================
