Certain illnesses sweep across large communities, and then we learn that no such illnesses ever existed. Men and women recover memories of having been sexually abused as children. Whoosh, no they don't, their parents are reinstated as the most loving and laudable people you could imagine. Genocide occurs; no it doesn't. Nuclear waste contaminates large swathes of entire continents, and we all learn words like 'half-life.' But in a flash all the contamination has gone, the sheep aren't ticking, you can happily eat your lamb chops.
The maps are wrong. Frontiers snake across disputed territory, bending and cracking. A road no longer goes where it went yesterday. A lake vanishes. Mountains rise and fall. Well-known books acquire different endings. Color bursts out of black and white movies. Art is a hoax. Style is substance. The dead are embarrassing. There are no dead.
You're a sports fan but the rules are different every time you watch. You've got a job. No you don't. That woman powdered the President's johnson. In her dreams--she's a celebrated fantasist. She's to die for. She's a slut. [not necessarily irreconcilable truths; merely different views of a single circumstance] You don't have cancer. April Fools, yes you do. That good man in Nigeria is a murderer. The murderer in Algeria is a good man. That psycho killer is an American patriot. That American psycho is a patriot killer. And is that Pol Pot dying in the Angkoran jungle, or merely Nol Not?
These things are bad for you; sex, high-rise buildings, chocolate, lack of exercise, dictatorship, racism. No. Celibacy damages the brain, high-rise buildings bring us closer to god, tests show that a bar of chocolate a day significantly improves children's academic performance, exercise kills, tyranny is just a part of our culture so I'll thank you to keep your cultural-imperialist ideas off my fucking fiefdom, and as for racism, let's not get all preachy about this, it's better out in the open than under some grubby carpet. That extremist is a moderate. That universal right is culturally specific. This circumcised woman is culturally happy. That Aboriginal whistlecockery is culturally barbaric. Pictures don't lie. This image has been faked. Free the press. Ban nosy journalists. The novel is dead. Honor is dead. God is dead. Ugh, they're all alive. That star is rising. No, she's falling. You were on time. No, you were late. East is West. Up is down. Yes is no. In is out. Lies are truth. Two and two makes five. And all is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds.
No comments:
Post a Comment