Proteus at Eject! Eject! Eject posted an essay Monday (HT: The Hedgehog Blog) on some of the bumper stickers he sees during his commute in L.A. It's excellent--and long--but very much worth the time to read it all. It's even got pictures!
This is from his introduction:
Today, it seems that legions of people – growing legions – are falling victims to ideas and beliefs that on the face of it are patently false…things that are so clearly and obviously nuts that you really have to wonder what deep, mighty engine of emotional need could possibly drive a brain so deep into a hole. Seriously now, there are millions and millions of people on this planet who will torture logic and reason to mind-bending extremes in order to believe monumentally ridiculous “theories”… theories drawn from an emotional need so warped and debased that you are catapulted beyond anger and disbelief directly into pathos and the desire to call 911 before these people hurt themselves.
So perhaps we could take a walk through Fantasy Island armed only with a shotgun of logic and a few fact-filled shells and see what intellectual tumors we may safely blow into atoms. Time is short! So let’s start with the easy stuff and work our way up to the Lord God King Mack-Daddy falsehood of our age.
And that falsehood is... Nah. I'll let you read it for yourself.
2 comments:
Excellent! I live in Santa Monica myself, and enjoy the Oh, so many anti-Bush bumperstickers I encounter on the road.
I think it's time for another post of my own, with pictures I've taken. My last post on the matter.
Sorry to comment on a (relatively) old post, but I have a few observations on this man's 'essay.'
He doesn't like ad hominem attacks on others, as it is quite clearly not a valid debate technique, and yet he makes blanket statements like "community-college theater major drop-outs" about those who he happens to disagree with.
Also, he seems to think that being able to fly a plane makes you smart. No, being able to fly a plane makes you a pilot, not a genius. Duh.
An interesting essay, but methinks it probably wasn't a good choice to preface his work with a stern word against ad hominem attacks if he was going to use them.
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