February 22, 2010
quote out of context
from a tea party email chain:
Then I got to the part that made me feel like my head was going to explode: “A protégé of the political imprisoned patriotic poet Ezra Pound, Mullins compiled a well-researched corpus of works…”
Er? (via The Hydra)
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What is it about paranoia that makes it so appealing? Why is it such an almost endearing quality, a possibly rational response to the human condition, “…a Puritan reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible…” (188), so easy to slip into? “[I]t is nothing less than the onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that everything is connected, everything in the Creation…”(703). Which is a lot more comforting than “…anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything…”(434), a condition Slothrop slides into, but finds hard to bear: “Either They have put him here for a reason, or he’s just here. He isn’t sure that he wouldn’t, actually, rather have that reason. . . .”(434) Paranoia is a rather peculiar offshoot of creativity and imagination, starting with “what if…”; you fabricate this subtle web of underlying connections that They have spun to trap you like the help-less little insect you are, and your only defense is constant vigilance, and sometimes sheer luck… At the same time, there is another web, the Web of Life, which connects us to the exquisite beauty of the creative universe as well as to its destructive power. This Web is absolute, while Their’s is only relative (we hope). Ultimately, we all weave on the same tapestry, which is not to say that parts of it couldn’t be dangerous traps; it all depends on your perspective… on which side of the fence you sit…