Trag

Regularly do I observe the sedulous foray of pseudo-intellectual orations dribbling forth from near hollow cavities who crave the intimations of a breathing consciousness. And regularly do I turn ill. But my pain palliates when I perceive the gay gesticulations creep across their pale physiognomy, twitch their cephalic appendages, wide eyed and batting, spraying eerie enthusiasm in erratic disarray. I am captured in catatonic awe. Wonder notwithstanding, my poise begins to perturbate: not by waves of moist hostility flying from loose labia, nor by the flailing extremities rankling my repose, but by the beguiling barbaros of audible apparitions tracing from the lingua of this interlocutor to the auricle of my ear. And it floods my patience.

Propaganda’s vituperative rhetoric perpetuates loathsome ligatures on the mind and manufactures the trappings of glossy machinations.

What we are observing is akin to the trend that occurred in the 4th and 5th century BC in Ancient Greece between the Sophists who perpetuated the art of empty rhetoric and argumentation irrespective of content, and whose adherents went on to dominate and pollute Athenian politics and ethics, and the Eleatics who developed robust systems of logical thought and sound argumentation.

The parallels between American “democratic” culture and Greek “democratic” culture are frighteningly similar and may yield some worthwhile insights into the future state of politics. Within the framework of political liberalism, neither of these democracies qualify as such. In Athens the only free political man with any rights to speak of was the wealthy capitalist land owner. But I suppose this is representative of America today after all.