Culture: May 2012 Archives

Ace of Spades HQ: Interesting Post at Commentary, on the Vicious Disdain of the Elite

On shibboleths, left-wing academia's disdain for middlebrow culture, and the New Aristocrats: "The important thing, the only important thing, about a shibboleth is that it's not what the commoners are saying. The point of the shibboleth is not reaffirm external truth, but to reaffirm personal identity. It is no wonder they all quickly fall in a line and begin spouting minor variations on the same stupid claim. The point was never, ever to consider the truth of the matter, and subject it to analysis; but precisely to simply repeat what other self-discovered members of the New Aristocrats are saying, because that's how they each know they belong."

Links to this story in Commentary by Fred Siegel, How Highbrows Killed Culture. Far from being a cultural desert, the 1950s were a time of great popular interest in the life of the mind, even on television: "'on March 16, 1956, a Sunday chosen at random,' the viewer could have seen a discussion of the life and times of Toulouse-Lautrec by three prominent art critics, an interview with theologian Paul Tillich, an adaptation of Walter Van Tilburg Clark's Hook, a documentary on mental illness with Dr. William Menninger, and a 90-minute performance of The Taming of the Shrew."

When A Narcissist Falls Apart | Flopping Aces

A great story about a narcissistic executive's complete breakdown while on a hunting trip. There's a political application at the end. "A neurotic Narcissist will become desperate as the false image that has been created, begins to crumble away, thus at a certain point the Narcissistic neurosis becomes a malignant psychosis."