BELITTLED INTO DISUSE
BY THE BOTTOM LINE
BY THE BOTTOM LINE
Any philosophy that doesn’t recognize
the primacy of the individual is a trap
aimed at turning you into a number.
the primacy of the individual is a trap
aimed at turning you into a number.
A world without hope
doesn’t have long to live.
When they killed the churches, they killed morality. Churches were the glue that tied neighborhoods together. It didn’t matter that religions destroy themselves as they try to conceal their own false dogma or succumb to their own human frailties. Now most neighborhoods are gone, too, vaporized first by malls, then by immigration, and more lately by the Internet. Underlying all this social change was the century of corporate capitalism, which today more resembles a preliminary steppingstone in an inevitable metamorphosis toward communism which corporations and banks seem to desire.
Allow an anecdote, if you will. Here in Melbourne, Australia, the year is 1971 and l'm in year 11 at a government school. "Religious Instruction" classes had been scrapped, while in Social Studies class The Communist Manifesto was compulsory reading - and presented by the teacher as a Bible containing most holy scripture.
ReplyDeleteThis was at the height of Viet Nam, with Aussies subject to conscription - and some were even volunteering - to go fight communism.
Then one day, a large delivery truck arrives and backs-up to the Humanities wing. Male teachers and some students begin carrying in boxes and stacking the hallway, while monitors broke open the boxes and came into every classroom, distributing a book to every pupil. The techers were excited and presented the whole event as a taboo being broken (don't tell your parents, they won't understand).
What was the book? Mao's Little Red Book... I kid you not, and I still have that very book to this day (as proof). Oh, and it's worth mentioning that the Head of the Humanities dept. was a foxy 30-something Jewess (who all the guys wanted to shag, of course). And her right-hand was a Canadian exchange teacher - mid-20's blonde bombshell and also a fervent communist. She rolled the joints in the staff room after school each day. God, I miss the 70's. ;-)