18 November 2008

Why is this señorito unlike the other señoritos?

I guess it must be because D. Brooks manages to be so extraordinarily señoritoly without actually possessin’ any Daddy to call its own.

"Kristol Minor," one thinks easily and naturally enough, "Pipes Minor, Podhóretz Minor, Buckey Tertius . . . ." The ever-august House of Kennebunkport-Crawford is slightly different from the pseudaristocracy of Neocognia proper in certain ways, but not on the fake-dynastic flank: our incumbent Brat not only had a Daddy, it had a Granddaddy too.

And so it goes over to starboard in Wingnut City, so it goes even with the current -- though doubtless not for much longer! -- Commanderissimo of AEI and EiB and GOP. The Flaky Flyboy is technically entitled to subscribe himself "John Sidney McCain III." I have no idea whether he ever actually takes advantage of opportunities to show off his Roman numeral. Any competent imaginer can, however, easily imagine JSM3 torn between two stools about it, whether to play at being I. Coriolanus Superbus Invictorianissimus or to play at bein’ plain Jack Maverick, Tonto to the Lone Ranger as played at by Governess S. L. Heath-Paling of Alaska.

Master Brooks is not like the others. Davey is like M. Tullius Cicero, novus homo, or even like unto Melchisedek, blessèd and mysterious Priest-King from Erewhon [1], sine principio sineque fine. Or sineque terminatione, as the case may be.

So what is our endless and beginin’less little laddie up to this morning? Why, it is expoundin’ the Deeper Significance of the Crawford Crash. (What would you expect it to be up to?) It starts rather tediously with some warmed-over First Estater tripe and baloney,

"Americans will learn to live without material extravagances. They’ll simplify their lives. They’ll rediscover what really matters ... [yada, yada] ...
, but after a while, around Paragraph VII, cheerfulness breaks in:
"It’s possible that the downturn will produce a profusion of Hugo Chávezes. It’s possible that the Obama administration will spend much of its time battling a global protest movement that doesn’t even exist yet.

That reflection may not make you feel particularly cheerful, but if so, you will no doubt be an adherent of the "Democrat Party" and maybe even an Obamatarian thug. Naturally at Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh unanticipated difficulties for ThatOne™ are almost as heart-warmin’ as apple pie and mooseburgers and even the Fœtus Cult itself.

Still, Señorito D. Brooks has never been half as much interested in the Lesser Breeds Without as most of the neocognaçois gentry are, so it swiftly reverts to the near side of salt water and moves straight to its own topic of topics, "Suburbia in Central North America, 1928-2235." (Sicut canis, qui revertitur ad vomitum suum, so David Brooks -- if you will pardon my very rusty French.) Once it gets properly revved up, it manages to remain pretty cheerful even in the act of decantin’ whole litres of cold water into other people’s soup:

It will be the loss of a social identity, the loss of social networks, the loss of the little status symbols that suggest an elevated place in the social order. These reversals are bound to produce alienation and a political response. If you want to know where the next big social movements will come from, I’d say the formerly middle class.

Lots of fun at Finnegan’s wake! Unfortunately the laddie dishes out only the plainest sort of tap water. [*] Stale tap water at that, since everybody instructed beyond wombschool level has heard Master Davey’s Soc. Sci. tune before, the one with the catchy refrain Und morgen die ganze Welt!

Surely Miss Clio will not repeat herself quite as unimaginatively as Señorito D. Brooks imagines? Farces are supposed to be funny, I believe. Although perhaps one should not rely on the late Dr. Marx’s sense of humour too heavily . . . .

But seriously: why on Gore’s green earth is a political response bound to be produced? What prevents the Holy Homeland’s alien and bewildered couch potatoes from, for instance, sinkin’ ever deeper and deeper into some Oblomov- or even Quayle-like stupour of couchpotatoedom? Alternatively, might they not advance beyond the familiar Bowlin’ Alone® product in the same general direction, perhaps with a hand-held e-gizmo that can bowl for them virtually?

Or feel free to roll your own! "There are more things in heaven and earth, Davidito, / Than are dreamt of in your psociology."

Happy days.

___
[1] "But all the tribes and all the peoples will speak the truth who are receiving from you yourself, O Melchizedek, Holy One, High-Priest, the perfect hope and the gifts of life. (...) [H]e is from the race of the High-priest, which is above thousands of thousands, and myriads of myriads, of the aeons. The adverse spirits are ignorant of him, and (of) their (own) destruction.

And so forth and so on: like little Davey’s own psociologisin’, a little of that rotgut brew goes a long, long way.


[2] A truly stop-at-nothing rhetor might, however, speak of "Vichy water."

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