We are Watsonista. You will be assimilated.
I should know better than to have optimism. There was a brief window, that spanned the transition from the last millenium to our new one, where I entertained the foolish hope that perhaps we had actually left the politics of division behind us as a relic of a stupider age. Haha. Do I have egg on my face or what?
Yes I was premature in my hopes, and had suspended my Cynical reason. As Sidney J. Harris once timelessly quipped –
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
True, he was referring to small “c” cynics, but it’s nevertheless a sensible attitude to have. Overestimating your fellow (wo)man rarely ends in anything other than tears.
Fairly early in the piece1 I was noting the eerie parallels between the Watson circus, it’s distinctly neo-puritan overtones, and various fundamentalist ideologies. Specifically, it’s self-hating flagellant mindset, paranoid persecution and martyr fantasy (a la islamism) and delight in scapegoating and denunciation. I was far from alone in these observations. (more…)
grey lining 