subtext

The Bush administration is busily creating reasons to widen the war by attacking Iran. I am reading Holland et al’s book on Figured Worlds. I wonder how we can allow such a world as Bush and his minions are creating? Is it really as simple as telling the same lies in a slightly different version, order an air strike then say, “Well we’re already involved, so it would be a shame to have sacrificed in vain.” In the New York Times today, there was one article and an editorial that disturbed me. The article described men (sic) who were receiving their science doctorates from reputable universities (Rhode Island and Harvard) who believed in creationism and a young earth. They wrote their dissertations using all the correct science, yet they still believe the earth is no older than 10,000 years and that evolution is incorrect. They use the authority of the programs they went through to grant legitimacy to their religious beliefs; and claim they are being discriminated against because of these beliefs when their science is questioned. The Bible is simply another paradigm from which to see the world. Is this a perversion of postmodernism? Is there an orthodoxy that can question stupidity? (Yes, I know postmodernism is not an anything goes relativism, but it is ironic that the religious positivists demanding that there is “One Big Truth” use a relativistic argument to justify their superstitious myths).
The second piece an editorial discussing the popularity of using Yeats’ “Second Coming” by various pundits, and their misreading of the second half of the poem. The editorial uses Bloom and Vendler to explain the second part as an oracular vision that questions the accuracy of making predictions. Sadly after reading the paper tonight, the rough beast I see slouching towards Bethlehem to born is one the “fundamentalists” want: the end of the world so their Christ can come and take them to the big country club in the sky.