Fred On Everything — When I read guys like Fred “Sour? Moi?” Reed, I think to myself, “There but for the grace of God go I.” An obvious libertarian who has never seen any joy in Mudville. I am Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky by comparison. If you like interesting rants, this is a beaut.
excerpt:
A friend says, “Fred, gringos want to be controlled. They love this police-state stuff. It gives them meaning. They lead miserable lives in boring suburbs. The husband is a mouth-breathing oaf with his retinas sewed to the football machine. His wife is a pucker-faced shrew with cellulite like the dark side of the Moon and his kids are whining dopers who gawp at the box and gurgle over stupid video games. The guy has no control over anything in his life. He’s scared of the boss and the pissed-off middle-aged man-hating divorcee with thick ankles in Human Resources who would love to outsource his job to Mumbai. He knows he’ll get raped if he splits from the wife. So he wants to kill something. He doesn’t care what, and anyway finding out might require reading a book, which god knows he isn’t going to do.”
This may be harsh. It also may be true of more people than one would like. The United States does not look real happy just now. It is a lower-middle-class country with an upper-middle-class income, except the credit cards are maxed out and people are in debt up to their gills. They don’t read much. The cultural center of gravity is the black ghetto with its irremediable anger. Americans tend to equate social class with income, but Archie Bunker in a call-me-Arnold SUV is still Archie Bunker. And his job, no matter how air-conditioned the office, is probably as rewarding as screwing lug-nuts on cars passing on the assembly line.
Fun reading.
Makes sense to me!
found by Fabrizio Marana
That seemed rather optimistic to me. With half the country currently having an insatable genocidal bloodlust, that goes far beyond their fears of terrorism, i’d say Fred was being damn generous. The US has become a nation of demons headed by Satan himself.
I believe I can put things into view with a quote from a great man
“I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”
The problem is that no one is living in reality. People are living in a world of language and symbols. I’m reading a good book about this now. I highly recommend it. It is written in very easy English while remaining thought provoking:
“Language in Thought and Action” 2nd Ed. by S.I. Hayakawa. Publisher: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1963.
Madison Avenue is a leading cause for angst. Americans have been convinced that buying things will bring happiness. Money will bring the most happiness in the form of security, that takes savings not spending.
I blame Edward Bernays.
Poor guy, I feel sorry for him that he had a bad day! By reading his sobbings, I feel less inclined to read the book he is pushing at the end of the post. I just don’t have room in my house for another door stop.
WKW, I was not trying to tell anyone off. I have not heard of this man, but he is a talented writer. Although there is truth in some of what he wrote, I was just commenting on how pessimistic the whole tone of the piece was. It does seem to be his style, but I think I a whole lot of meaning is lost with the heavy handedness of its sarcasm.
By the way, my comment about the door stop was just a reference to the “endorsement” from The American Builder, “Solid, authoritative, makes an excellent door stop.”
lol thats awesome – that guy needs his opwn tv show on the independant channel
Great piece of writing. Of course it’s loaded with sarcasm, but that’s ok…thats what it’s supposed to be full of. Is there truth? You bet there is…..maybe to much for a lot of people.
I very nearly posted a few paragraphs of myself clearing my throat to see if I sound as much like this guy as I suspect. I don’t need to bore anyone while I validate that I’ve discovered a nice example of what I happen to conform to, myself. No doubt there are people who will feel uncomfortably as though he’s talking about them, without appreciating how many levels of self-parody are occuring in that moment.
It should be expected that if the guy on the cover is him, it makes perfect sense that his thinking has led him to take on the appearance of Hunter S. Thompson and Gary Busy, had the matter teleporter not quite known how to separate them at the destination. I’ll remember the title and grab it if I see it — some people spend money on their clothes, or hair cuts. I’d just like to be sure I’m not talking to someone one day and accused of trying to sound like him, so it’d be a good thing to avoid.
#3 I whole heartedly concur. I am going to check out the book. It’s all about Image, driven by commercials; politician certainly know this. Anorexia and bulimia are very symptomatic of this.
People seem not to be very responsive to reality, in fact they disdain the nitty gritty factual details, hurts the brain. So much for age of science and reason.
Instead way to many people are led by sirens of iconic symbolism. You could get most Americans to do almost anything with a glossy brochure, and empty promises, think the upcoming elections. In fact I bet if a study were done, most Americans make more life decisions based on iffy commercials then what their education would indicate.
If people could vote for him to be president, Cletus “the slack jawed yokel” they most definitely would…..
Oh wait a minute, they already did. Cripes!
3 & 12:
So long as you’re going this route, be careful to avoid assuming all thinking is linear or consistent. Not only does compartmentalization mean that people’s views end up inconsistent when applied to different subjects (blowjob = criminal war crimes = patriot), from one moment to the next on the same subject (PMS), but wind up perceived through the same compartmentalized filter as well.
To paraphrase Lovecraft, the most meriful aspect of the human mind is it’s inability to correlate it’s own content.
14, Max, ALL THINKING IS NONEXISTENT. Think about that. A thought of an apple is not an apple. A thought is a REPRESENTATION, A MODEL of something in the real world that IS an apple. No one experiences reality because we put thinking between ourselves and the outside real world. As soon as we meet someone for the first time and start evaluating (a thinking process) him/her we are not in reality. We are in a make-believe world of the mind. I’ve been able to separate thought from the real world. It is an accomplishment that almost no one can do. I could meet you and see you and not one thought enter into my head. Try it. If you can do that, you are but a few in the billions.
#3 LANGUAGE IN THOUGHT AND ACTION??? I can’t believe anyone is still quoting Hayakawa! (By the way, I own copies of all four editions–Senator Sam Hayakawa was a great friend of Robert Anson Heinlein, and is even characterized in several of Heinlein’s novels)
If you learn the sciences of asymbolic logic (argument and rhetoric) Symantics, Linguistics, and enough social sciences to get a real clue of what is going on, then, it is clear that America is a society in the throes of deep cultural crisis. Fred has a point–we are opting for dumbness. Our universities now hold out as the top prize an MBA. (the ultimate job ticket) While, at the same time, fewer students pursue the sciences, the humanities, the arts.
But this is nothing new. Read Jonathan Swift. Read Voltaire. Read to understand. Read to empathise. Discuss. Argue. Reason. Admit when you are wrong. Stand up when you are right.
Persevere. And remember, civilization is a process.
I’ve been able to separate thought from the real world.
Well, we can agree on that.
16, David, do you think that TV is the prime factor in the dumbing down of America? I revolted against American society by throwing my set in the garbage. That hypnosis box does not have a place in my home. Do you think by eliminating the TV that America can become smarter?
To quote that eminient philospher Graucho Marx’s….*I heard they are going to mandate that 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on television everynight to educate Americans…..looking around at my fellow Americans….I think they need to start educating at 6:30 p.m.*