"For [Oprah's] believers, self-knowledge is much less important than self-'love.' But the question they never seem to ask themselves is: If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture. It's a culture where superstition is 'spirituality,' illiteracy is 'authenticity,' and schoolmarm moralism is 'character.' It's a culture where people apologize by saying, 'I'm sorry you took offense at what I said,' and forgive by saying, 'I'm not angry at you anymore, I'm grateful to you for teaching me not to trust shitheads like you.' And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented."-- Peter Birkenhead, clearly not feeling the love for Barack Obama's #1 supporter.
No comments:
Post a Comment
COMMENTS ARE BACK ON