Asked about the greatest challenges facing American society, my response used to be glib enough: It all boiled down to the same three factors that determined the value of any piece of real estate. They were, in order of importance: location, location and location. But I'm not so sure any more. About anything.
The great challenge now is no longer finding problems but selecting them, there are so many. They must multiply during the night, there are so many to choose from. You name it, it's a problem, or at least a pet peeve: from the absence of indices from recently published books to the modern plague of what's called multi-tasking. The language used to describe it is enough to make you cry. Or laugh out loud.
As a sign above an old, collapsing general store in
The last refuge of real language may be a couple of African-American youth doing the dirty dozens on the sidewalk outside a storefront on
If there is a name for this sickness, it is spiritual anemia. Denied the blood and body of salvation, it dissolves, folding back on itself till it disappears into the void. As with art or music, the great challenge it presents is not to be all-inclusive but selective.
The stars in their heavenly course ask no questions. They do not make oracular pronouncements, yet day by day uttereth knowledge and night by night speaketh wisdom. They have no need of words, only an endless silence. In place of a sane mind in a sound body, we have adopted some kind of homeopathic pseudoscientific medicine as our ideal, and it is making us sicker than ever.
But at every juncture of our tangled history, some know-it-all who's really a know-nothing can be counted on to rise up and proclaim a one-size-fits-all, comprehensive explanation of everything. For a splendid example of that sad phenomenon, see
Just listen to the all too imitable
And what is to be made of
Who knew? "No. We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices. ... Government has to make those choices for people." Welcome to democracy Clinton-style, which doesn't differ all that much from good old-fashioned fascism. Like any good dictator, she doesn't even drive her own car, at least not since circa 1996. Hail Caesar! Huey is often credited with saying that, if fascism comes to this country, it'll be on a program of Americanism.
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
