America's picture of itself as inviolable was shredded on 9/11, and for a moment the world's most powerful nation was flayed. Just as its solution to the agony of vulnerability was to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, so the solution to the presence of monsters in our midst is to rid ourselves both of them and any identity with them. They become the receptacle for everything that is bad, and in casting it away we can believe that we are good enough and once again in charge.What on earth does this mean? The subheading to the piece says that "We cast evildoers such as Fritzl as bogeymen to spare ourselves any moral self-examination". I thought that it was because imprisoning and serially raping your daughter in a specially constructed cellar over a 24 year period might just be described as both abnormal and utterly wicked. How foolishly simplistic of me, I am obviously in need of therapy to uncover my moral complicity.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Eh?
There are times when my critical faculties hit a brick wall of incomprehension. I suppose this is pure Guardian - from Joseph Fritzl to Iraq via Hitler, Fred West, Pol Pot and Attila the Hun, combined with a sense that it is somehow all our fault. I really need help understanding this conclusion:
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5 comments:
"What on earth does this mean?" One possibility is that the editor of the Guardian has more space and money at his (and it is a he, I think) disposal than he sensibly knows what to do with. (Assuming Ms Topolski was paid for her pearls of wisdom.) Unless its only online, in which case, "whatever".
Missed a good one yesteday Peter. Holroyd looks pretty impressive at CC1 level.
I have read this quotation several times and have concluded it is the result of a far fetched attempt to fold Fritzl into a narrative (perhaps even a beloved 'meta-narrative'?) whereby civilised revulsion for a terrible crime is equated to a desire for revenge. By these terms no responsible society could defend itself or its people and liberal society could not have come into being.
The Guardian speaks nonsense which is no surprise, but what is the appropriate punishment?
I used to think that retributive justice was right but am not sure now. DNA analysis, not relevant here I agree, has cast a question over so many cases.
We know what is abhorrent. We usually know who is guilty. What is the punishment? Buggered if I know.
Sounds like some Furedist bullshit to me.
If ya'll don't see that this Fritzl character is a direct result of Greco-Roman imperialism, ZioHitleroBush policies and global warming, I am helpless.
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