wonderful writing on perverse joys
Today's entry at
Belmont Club is very thoughtful (they are thinkers, not linkers):
They link to an essay in
The American Digest titled:
bq.
The Subconscious Yearning for American Defeat
bq. The American Digest has an article on perverse joys. The first, the nostalgie pour la boue, is a longing for the gutter, a "compulsion that comes over people when they have, for complex reasons, a need to immerse themselves in self-degradation. It's usually a mix of drink, drugs, and weird sex until the soul is obliterated by the abused flesh". It is the pastime of celebrity and the author, Gerard Van der Leun, wonders whether it is not related to an impulse in the media elite, for the nostalgie pour la défaite.
bq.
"Nostalgie pour la défaite is that state of the soul when an American, who either came of age in the Vietnam era, or who was taught and mentored by a leftist or liberal of that vintage, yearns for the defeat of America. This state is then seen as confirmation that his or her world view and social milieu is the right view and right milieu. To operate otherwise would throw not only all the professional views and actions of the last thirty years into question, but the entire structure of the afflicted personality as well."
Posted by DaveH at December 12, 2003 3:17 PM