Candy and a ‘Current’ Bun
Has the definition of “current” changed? Last time I checked, the term denoted what’s happening approximately in the time of now.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I boast about how “current” I am, I try to find examples of what I’ve read that were published later than 15 years ago or, in the case of Charles Darwin, 150 years ago. Bookstores are full of contemporary examples of literature, and the Wall Street Journal typically features insightful reviews of new works daily. For all the journalistic failings of the New York Times, it also performs a commendable job of reviewing recently published books. Not a week goes by without some literary critic or another piquing my interest in purchasing a recently published work of fiction or nonfiction.
Don’t get me wrong. The personal library is overflowing with books, both old and new, from every conceivable genre. And every week, the postwoman brings me more from both, which is added to the stacks and reading tables of my humble abode. Astute readers will note the second allusion to old Pink Floyd songs in the previous sentence; the first being the pun in the headline.
However, claims that books published more than a decade ago have the transformative property of rendering owners up to speed or “current” strain credulity as “current” is measured in days, weeks, and sometimes months rather than years and decades. For example, the Biden administration’s completely snafued Afghanistan withdrawal two years ago this month isn’t technically considered a current event. However, this Monday’s Camp Pendleton hearing with testimonials from the families of 13 U.S. Marines killed by a suicide bomber are indeed considered current.
That’s something you won’t read about elsewhere in this fish wrap, but you’ll still find attempts to legitimize the
Steele dossier, which was debunked years, not weeks nor months, ago, and nowhere more hard-hitting than in the supposedly well-worn pages of the Wall Street Journal. Nor will you read anything elsewhere in this real estate about the rot of corruption emanating from the highest echelons of the U.S. government and the weaponized Alphabet agencies scrambling to carry water for the current president and his family.
Given the chance, I’m sure the nation’s citizens would appreciate a modicum of honesty regarding a certain laptop as well as another offspring’s diary.
Daily revelations of other legal, ethical, and moral lapses are also current, including investigations into the ongoing revelations of collusion between social media and government bureaucrats that are so shameful they’d shock even Arthur Koestler and George Orwell. Nice First Amendment you got there … a shame if anything ever happened to it, especially during a pandemic and election year.
The media/government bureaucracy complex and its cheerleaders — including those whom Uncle Joe Stalin labeled “useful idiots” — seem intent on burying as much information as possible until it eventually bubbles up and into the public consciousness. And when it does eventually bubble to the surface, the pivot begins: “It’s old news, so move on.” Or, they continue to repeat the lie as their mantra of truthiness. The essence of the lie, you see, is dialectically the truth.
The completely anti-current parroting of Richard Dawkins’ and Christopher Hitchens’ texts in the service of atheism is interpreted precisely for what it is: political expediency. Blow up the precepts of the world’s great religions — deny what Russell Kirk dubbed “the enduring moral order” — and it becomes so much easier to push the culture of death and sow the seeds of other social and, therefore, political confusion. The atheistic assertions of Dawkins and Hitchens, for all the brilliance of their respective writing (especially Hitchens), can be easily and respectfully refuted.
Furthermore, it’s what students of rhetoric instantly recognize as an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy that cannot withstand sustained scrutiny.
Nice First Amendment you got there … a shame if anything ever happened to it, especially during a pandemic and election year.