September 15, 2006
Is banality really banal?
When future historians look for the epithet to describe our times (as in “The Aspirin Age”, “The Me Decade”) the term that will fit best is “Banality”. Peter of Leicester is the Napoleon Brandy of Banal. One unkind respondent (the millions-strong majority have been effusively kind) suggested that old farts like him should be locked up in a nursing home where they could quietly stink each other into euthanasia.
It seems to me simply focusing on “the big issues” often obscure the profoundly human. Should we live within such binaries? Is the local opposed to the global, the universal to the particular? I should hope not.
Here is Peter/geriatric1927′s response to the article, his corpus may also be found here.
comments
“old farts like him should be locked up in a nursing home where they could quietly stink each other into euthanasia”
that’s rich!
I should say as well that I don’t agree with the sentiment, it simply knocked me over in the moment.
I assumed as much. You don’t strike me as the sort that would fall prey to pretension.