I was thinking the same thing regarding Moochele's Re-writing History statement. I strongly suspect we will be seeing it coming with Common Core.

Ever read Stephen Donaldson? Pure fantasy, but compelling, and, ultimately, about right and wrong.

I sometimes think, no, I do think, that any discussion of objective "right and wrong" in the real world was verboten at least as early as the 60's, and probably before, certainly in academia, already seeping into the media, and then to the young.

So its only outlet became...fantasy...Lord of the Rings etc...

I still remember going to see a midnight debut of "Star Wars" in 1977 in Manhattan...after a decade of "navel-gazing, hip, counter-culture" films like MASH, Joe, Nashville...need I go on?

And thinking, as always "post-Atlas"..."maybe we have a chance...this is not just a movie, but a change in the way people think, there a actually bad guys and good guys"...

Damn, too optimistic there...

Although, coming this Spring...

Hello Snoogoo,
Very interesting. Yes we are clearly falling into the abyss. Honors courses on fictional TV shows filled with mysticism...
"War is Peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is Strength." Orwell

Regards,
O.A.

“We’re going to have to make sacrifices, we’re going to have to change our conversation, we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history and we’re going to have to move to a different place.”

Michele Obama 2008 campaign speech

Re-write history, wait a few generations and no one will ever know what is or was reality. Control the past and you control the future.

"A Seems A" yes agreed, just the sound of that can make one shudder in terror. Those on the lower tiers of the pyramid of ability, perhaps not all, but many tend to seek control this way, as a means of flipping the poles of reality that puts them on top. I need to re-read this part of AS but I am somehow correlating this realization of a broken reality to Cheryl's suicide.

On another note, even a cursory study of Medieval European history is way more dramatic and crazy than anything you will find in Game of Thrones. The author loosely based some of the plot and character names on actual history (Stark = York, Lannister = Lancaster), but it is a fantasy novel created for entertainment! There are plenty of primary sources available from that period to study. Universities are really whoring themselves out for money by making moves like this. But I guess that is nothing new.

I certainly hope this thread has "legs". It deserves it...some much intellectual destruction is going on, as it probably always has, in what those in what I would term as the middle or lower tiers of the "pyramid of ability", or in this case, intelligence, are exposed to.

Your post has one ridiculous quote about "accuracy". Oh, gag me with...

I've only watched the show once or twice, but I seem to recall various mythical "creatures" flitting about. Not to mention (both as an economist and a minor historian, oh, and rational) the utter misrepresentation of the degree of wealth and, yes, the "intelligence", as portrayed, of the "protagonists". In the Middle Ages?

But no matter, and here's my extracted quote to prove it:

"It stands out because it comments on the human condition in a way that seems real to people."

Huh? "seems real"? I think if there were a prize for compressing an untrue philosophical axiom into the fewest words possible, those two have to win hands down.

The best I can come up with is: A Seems A.

Really good title to your post, Snoogoo. Personally, I think a lot of our culture is psychotic at this point- certainly divorced from reality.