Writer's Block

"H.L. would be in his element, now. On second thought, he might be more like Tom Lehrer, totally helpless before the satire that is current American political reality."

Ernest Brown, via Billy Beck's Facebook feed

One would think that an enterprising weblogger channeling the Sage of Baltimore would be having a metaphorical field day when surveying the grotesque phantasmagoria of modern culture (including its superficial offshoot and bastard second cousin, modern politics).  However, the culture is so warped (and it has such a demoralizing effect on the psyche) that it can be difficult to cogently comment on any of it, much less in any fashion that would not drive the writer into despair and/or insanity.
     In 1908, in The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, H.L. Mencken referred to the then-current political landscape as "our present paternalism."  This was before the Federal Reserve System, the Harrison Narcotics Act (and the subsequent "War On Drugs"), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (and the rest of the alphabet agencies), the New Deal, the Square Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, most of the current cabinet departments (culminating in the Department of Homeland Security), et. al., etc., ad infinitum, not to mention generations conditioned to accept TARP bailouts, Patriot Acts, no-knock raids, and bans on clove cigarettes as acceptable political acts in the "land of the free."
     Mencken chided early-twentieth-century Americans for embracing the likes of Chaplin, Keaton, Griffith, and Dreyer as great artists to be feted if not beatified.  Compare them to their counterparts (such as they are) today.  (I was in the process of doing so but removed part one of the essay from this weblog.  There is only so much cultural decay a man can contemplate and still face the day.)  He referred to jazz as "jungle music."  What would he say about Static-X and The Notorious BIG?  He ridiculed "Harding, jabbering of normalcy."  Today?  The mind reels.
     So where do I go from here?  As I've remarked, I still find soul-nourishing value in the twenty-first century (even, occasionally, among twenty-first century works, and certainly among twenty-first century people).  That goes a long way.  Since I find that most people (however much their critical faculties have been stunted and malformed by progressive education, Childrens' Television Workshop, and eMpTyV Networks) have vestiges of human ratiocination along with their free will, I still have a modicum of hope that some of this cultural catastrophe can be turned around.  I plan to continue skewering the mindless while praising the mindful.  To my handful of readers: please bear with me.  I promised to revive this space, and I intend to (or start a new, similar, one).  Thank you for reading.