Conservative-Kosher

My Nietzche quote has prompted a bit of completely-unexpected criticism. He said "God is dead" and God is the "deification of nothingness" and other stuff that surely does not go over well with the faithful.

I guess I just wanted to say this: I used to be a liberal. (Hey, look, if you want to get some play with the ladies in college you either be liberal as all get out or else you start as star cornerback for the football team... being liberal seemed easier to me. I mean, I could have been a star cornerback, if I felt like it.)

And one of the things that started turning me off of liberalism cold was this stupid Boycott of the Week program they enrolled me in against my wishes. Grapes, apples, Coors, Domino's... I just could not keep up with the wide range of products or entertainments I was expected to eschew just to demonstrate how socially conscious I was.

And a lot of times the people telling you to boycott couldn't even explain why you were supposed to boycott.

"Hey man, don't eat Snickers."

"But I love Snickers."

"Nope. Boycott Snickers. Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what, exactly?"

"Uhhhhh... well, like, something? You know? Like they don't pay their migrant workers enough to thresh and harvest the Snickers trees? Or, like, five cents of every nickle from a Snickers bar goes to fund the Death Squads in, um, Portugal?"

"What Portuguese Death Squads?"

"You know... all those Death Squads in Latin America. I don't know the facts, I'm just telling you what I know. And what I know is that Snickers is filled with the Devil's Nougat."

"You're kiddin' me, right? No more Snickers? What if I really want one?"

"Well.... There's always O Henry."

"Ohhhhhh God. I suppose. There's always O Henry."

At any rate, that sort of stupidity turned me off liberalism faster than my own rapidly-diminishing sex drive.

Conservatives have been better about avoiding this Boycott of the Week deal, and usually, when we do boycott, we have some pretty damn good reasons for boycotting.

As I noted in a post: HL Mencken was a misanthrope (can't blame him on that score, actually) but worse yet an anti-semite. And yet he writes like a dream, has good and vicious sense when writing about people who aren't Jewish, and provided me with a kick-ass quote that sums up my blogging philosophy (and looks good on a t-shirt, which, did I mention?, you can still buy for a limited time only).

Should I boycott Mencken because hew was anti-Jew, too?

And what if I wanted to read TS Eliott and Ezra Pound? I confess, this is a rather remote possibility; I didn't want to read them when I was required to read them by HS and college teachers ("The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock"? Give me a break. No sale, lady. Peddle it elsewhere, 'cause I ain't buyin'.).

But suppose I had a sudden desire to be bored out of my mind by ugly poetry?

Anyway, I guess the question I have is: how seriously do you try to keep conservative-kosher? Is it even possible in a culture dominated by liberals?

posted by Ace at 02:46 PM

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