Tag: decline and fall

Land of the scanned

I know this will come as a shock, but the TSA has been planning to expand the airport scanner program to encompass other forms of transportation for some time now:

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy concerns. The projects range from what the DHS describes as “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports.

By the way, I have read the TSA “denial” that was added to the linked article. Note the precise wording: ““TSA has not tested the advanced imaging technology that is currently used at airports in mass transit environments and does not have plans to do so.” Of course not. Because the advanced imaging technology that they will be using in mobile units and in fixed pedestrian locations will be a different technology, of course.

At the Black Gate

Last week, I read with great interest the discussion that began with Leo Grin’s comparison of the heroic fantasy fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard with the anti-heroic fantasy fiction of Joe Abercrombie. As this is a topic that has interested me for years, I certainly have a number of thoughts regarding it. However, since I am a political commentator who is correctly said to be well outside the ideological mainstream of the SF/F community, I think it is best to begin by pointing out to those on both sides of the spectrum who may be eager to turn this into a political debate that this is not a political subject, but rather a historical, literary, and philosophical one. And as such, there is no need to argue over whether the trajectory over time that Grin observes is desirable or not, since that is a matter of perspective and personal opinion.

Regardless of one’s ideological self-identification or opinion on the specifics of Grin’s observations, it should be eminently clear to all and sundry that something material and significant has changed within the field of fantasy fiction in the 71 years that separate Howard’s final publication from Abercrombie’s first one and the 52 years that separate the publication of The Return of the King from The Blade Itself. I should also point out that I offer no personal criticism of Joe Abercrombie here, as he merely happens to serve as a representative of modern fantasy fiction and one of its more accomplished representatives at that….

Read the rest of what is a rather lengthy post on the link between literary decline and societal decline over at Black Gate.

The decline of fantasy

I found this back-and-forth on the decline of modern fantasy into nihilism to be quite interesting. I’ll probably weigh in with my own thoughts on the matter when my turn comes around again on Sunday, so check out the discussion between Leo Grin, Joe Abercrombie and others at the Black Gate:

The other side thinks that their stuff is, at long last, turning the genre into something more original, thoughtful, and ultimately palatable to intelligent, mature audiences. They and their fans are welcome to that opinion. For my part — and I think Tolkien and Howard would have heartily agreed — I think they’ve done little more than become cheap purveyors of civilizational graffiti.

Soiling the building blocks and well-known tropes of our treasured modern myths is no different than other artists taking a crucifix and dipping it in urine, covering it in ants, or smearing it with feces. In the end, it’s just another small, pathetic chapter in the decades-long slide of Western civilization into suicidal self-loathing. It’s a well-worn road: bored middle-class creatives (almost all of them college-educated liberals) living lives devoid of any greater purpose inevitably reach out for anything deemed sacred by the conservatives populating any artistic field. They co-opt the language, the plots, the characters, the cliches, the marketing, and proceed to deconstruct it all like a mad doctor performing an autopsy. Then, using cynicism, profanity, scatology, dark humor, and nihilism, they put it back together into a Frankenstein’s monster designed to shock, outrage, offend, and dishearten.

Longtime Ilk may recall that I touched on a few of these themes in an essay entitled CS Lewis and the problem of religion in science fiction and fantasy, which was published in the 2005 anthology Revisiting Narnia by BenBella Books.

A bold irrelevancy

The British Prime Minister addresses a symptom, not the disease:

David Cameron has criticised “state multiculturalism” in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism. At a security conference in Germany, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism. He also signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.

“Let’s properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

Secularism is a societal non-starter. Cameron is trying to tread a fine line that doesn’t actually exist. Universalist liberalism is no substitute for multiculturalism because it was the genesis of multiculturalism.

Ivy League inbreeding

Needless to say, this example of Ivy League inbreeding is going to be brought up every time someone from New York City tries to rag on Southerners, rednecks, or hillbillies for their supposed predilection for overly close families:

A Columbia University professor has been arrested on charges of having sexual relations with his daughter, officials said on Friday. David Epstein, 46, a political science professor at the Ivy League school, faces one count of incest in the third degree, according to a complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. He had relations with his daughter, now 24, from 2006 through 2009, the complaint said. Epstein was released on his own recognizance after appearing before a judge on Thursday.

Given the spurious rationales that various judiciaries have used to legalize homosexuality and homogamy, it’s only a matter of time before relationships like the Epsteins are deemed to be legal as well, assuming that one in fact existed. Once traditional mores have been thrown out the window, it is very difficult to rationally declare “thus far and no farther” since every single argument made in support of those legal abominations can just as easily be utilized in this case. If the professor chooses to vigorously defend himself on those terms, he should have a pretty good chance of being exonerated even if he is guilty. It should be interesting to see what folks like John Scalzi and other outspoken supporters of state-sanctioned homogamy have to say about this case.

Of course, if he is exonerated and Epstein v. New York becomes the incestuous version of Lawrence v. Texas, one will be forced to conclude that the Other McCain has summarized the national prospects well: “Tomorrow’s forecast: Widely scattered fire with a 60% chance of afternoon and evening brimstone.”