Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.
— Hannah Arendt
We’re approaching the third anniversary of my ceremonial blacklisting on social media by the Floyd County Democratic Party, which is to say, by the social committee — which is to say, by the party’s chairman “Oily” Adam Dickey.
It matters little whether the “terms of use” comprise cribbed boilerplate, or were written by the “social media committee” itself, although when I inquired of another party insider, the reply I received speaks volumes:
There isn’t a social media committee.
We already know that Dickey’s Democrats will go to almost any length to insulate (inDisneylate?) themselves from dialectics, dialogue and dissonance, a safety mechanism presumably borne of herculean daily efforts to synchronize lower-case “democracy” with even lower-base Gahan Cult of Personality.
Bromides are spouted and mind-numbing catechisms nurtured, even as Gahan channels his inner Trump and bulldozes public housing units, burying with them any remaining “democratic” principles. How Dickey keeps a straight face amid the bonfire is anyone’s guess, though another thought of Arendt’s might explain it.
What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
Perhaps the effort required to sustain hypocrisy of this magnitude is so exhausting that conversation genuinely is impossible, although they never seem to tire of talking about themselves. Maybe I shouldn’t complain. In the absence of interaction, I’m being allowed to write their history for them — and I’m delighted to undertake this task. Censorship may be vile, but it can be liberating, too.
Cue the saintly LBJ …
It’s probably better to have him (J. Edgar Hoover) inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
