Zeitgeist Europa
Americans who find themselves compelled to look to Europe for salvation from the hell of fundamentalism, be it Christian or just plain, basic American values, really should spend some time considering European cultural offerings such as the following that's available from Norway:
Things could conceivably be far worse. The brief ebullition of indignation that followed Janet Jackson’s rather pathetic exhibitionist display during the Super Bowl’s halftime show was no doubt sincere, but surely it was nothing compared to the fury in Poland earlier this year after Polish state television aired a concert by a Norwegian “black metal” band in Krakow. The entertainment reportedly featured—among other whimsical conceits—naked women hanging from crosses (one of whom had to be hospitalized when she lost consciousness), a dozen sheeps’ heads impaled on stakes, perhaps a hundred liters of sheep’s blood poured over the performers and their audience, a stage festooned with satanist sigils, and songs of praise to the devil. Not that this concert was in any sense a departure for Norwegians: such bands are perhaps Norway’s chief cultural export these days, and among their giddily irrepressible devotees they enjoy a celebrity of the sort once accorded to Paganini. Their performances invariably involve roughly equal measures of cruelty, obscenity, sacrilege, diabolism, and Norse paganism (thus accomplishing the difficult feat of simultaneously blaspheming both the Christian God and Odin). But it was certainly a departure for Polish television.
"Freedom and Decency"
by David B. Hart
First Things
June/July 2004
bin Laden seems to have placed his crosshairs - "pipper" for you fighter pilots out there - on the wrong cultural target. Europe is far more corrupt, debauched and decadent than Americans can even imagine. Perhaps we'd find it easier to retarget the Islamic fundamentalists than to wipe them out. In which case we can kill two of those proverbial birds with one stone - prevent attacks on this country and silence those pesky Europeans.
N'est pas?
Things could conceivably be far worse. The brief ebullition of indignation that followed Janet Jackson’s rather pathetic exhibitionist display during the Super Bowl’s halftime show was no doubt sincere, but surely it was nothing compared to the fury in Poland earlier this year after Polish state television aired a concert by a Norwegian “black metal” band in Krakow. The entertainment reportedly featured—among other whimsical conceits—naked women hanging from crosses (one of whom had to be hospitalized when she lost consciousness), a dozen sheeps’ heads impaled on stakes, perhaps a hundred liters of sheep’s blood poured over the performers and their audience, a stage festooned with satanist sigils, and songs of praise to the devil. Not that this concert was in any sense a departure for Norwegians: such bands are perhaps Norway’s chief cultural export these days, and among their giddily irrepressible devotees they enjoy a celebrity of the sort once accorded to Paganini. Their performances invariably involve roughly equal measures of cruelty, obscenity, sacrilege, diabolism, and Norse paganism (thus accomplishing the difficult feat of simultaneously blaspheming both the Christian God and Odin). But it was certainly a departure for Polish television.
"Freedom and Decency"
by David B. Hart
First Things
June/July 2004
bin Laden seems to have placed his crosshairs - "pipper" for you fighter pilots out there - on the wrong cultural target. Europe is far more corrupt, debauched and decadent than Americans can even imagine. Perhaps we'd find it easier to retarget the Islamic fundamentalists than to wipe them out. In which case we can kill two of those proverbial birds with one stone - prevent attacks on this country and silence those pesky Europeans.
N'est pas?
posted by Dennis Sevakis at 8:24:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home