Friday, December 11, 2009

A Song of Praise

Let us pause to praise our legions of technocrats and administrators who hop to each time the God of Policy farts. Praise all the accountants, lawyers, programmers, marketers, implementers of policy, Scribes and Pharisees with their fossilized souls frozen in the resin of intellectual barrenness.

These are the bravest of the brave who leave their piety tucked beneath church pews as they go forth on Mondays to execute, promulgate and sell. They drape death in silks and hang bangles from his neck as they drown his stench with eau de cologne.

They are our noble maggots recycling human flesh into upticks and point spreads as they sacrifice children on the altar of national security that they may justify their anxiety and paranoia. They prosecute the innocent in the name of security, level homes in the name of commerce and tolerate poverty in the name of freedom.

Let us honor and lift them up that God may glorify their efforts. Let us join our voices in thanksgiving, for without them we would be a second-rate power known only for the happiness and security of its people instead of the most feared power the world has ever known. They are the ones who are taking us to the mountain top from whence we may leap forth and soar unto the rocks below.

Without their amorality decency could well ravage the world, shrinking market share as it did so. Without their value-free calculations and formulae fair play could well replace foul. Without their subservience our the corporate state could wither away.

It was they who made the Nazi death camps the stunning successes that they were. Without their administrative skills the camps never would have achieved the productivity that they did.

They are our professionals who understand that professionalism is a synonym for dehumanization. Their upbringing and education has been such that all decency has been leached from their souls. All that is left is a crippled shell that knows only how to implement and not how to think.

The dangerous ones, of course, are those who have clung to their morality despite the best efforts of society to neutralize it. Yet, they are harmless because all they know is technique, not thought, so they see only superficial symptoms and not root causes. This is why most progressive thinking is such thin gruel.

Tacitus said of the Romans that they created a desert and called it peace. Our administrators say that they created a insipid wasteland and called it happiness.

6 comments:

Ivan Hentschel said...

Eeeeew! Feeling a little jaundiced and edgy this morning? Feeling a little "slighted" by the President in Oslo? Haven't had your Psalms greased by the powers that be, lately?

I suppose this means you don't want to meet me for cocoa under the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center? You know: that place right up the road from Wall St.? Over by Madison avenue? Maybe we could drop by St. John the Divine's and have a a cup of corporate corpulence as a toast to 1600 Penn Ave.?

I'd offer you some of my hemlock, but I'm keeping it all for myself.

Seinbeetre said...

Great post!

Life for an intelligent being consists of learning to live with the rabble. The rabble that pretends to live and in the end even fails to convince itself. The rabble that rots in every social strata. The mindcontrolled slave.

Sadly people who learn to use their faculties effectively are scarce. Don't let that fact distract you from leading a life worth living.

david m said...

I second,great post. You left me speechless with this one.

Anonymous said...

Great post, thanks.
BTW, take a look at the story about Amazon.com at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/the-secret-lives-of-amazo_n_387847.html , and go on to read the comments. Most of the guys do not see anything wrong with what is going on there. No sense of social justice, no sympathy for fellow citizens whatsoever. Every "free" man for himself. Great society.

tony

Case Wagenvoord said...

Ivan,
The cocoa sounds great as long as I can sit on Santa's lap.

Seinbetre,
We is the rabble.

Dave,
Thanks.

Anon,
That's Social Darwinishm for you.

Rolf said...

When you say "they sacrifice children on the altar of national security" and "prosecute the innocent in the name of security", I am reminded of the President's smooth performance in Oslo: "We need to make war to achieve peace." This should be expanded into "permanent war to achieve permanent peace".
I am looking forward to a comment from you on this latest Peace Price.