“But darling, certainly that shabby-genteel demographic is unstintingly benevolent in their wholly rendered munificence?”
“Based on your learned observation, experience, and reading of history and of men, for surely no man’s judgement on society is sound without an intelligent grasp on the rudiments of human psychology, what do you reckon, with your intuitive probe, will succeed as the monstrous machinations of this century and beyond?”
“A tiddler you are and to speak with such pomp and pessimism of the world you know so little about.”
“Experience is overrated, my dear. Worse, it coarsens men’s sensibilities, and in some tragic case, at one vicious stroke.”
“You doomsayer and scaremonger – insensate, fanatical, gormless – with no appreciation for what mankind has hitherto achieved. Always scouring for the indicia of moral, political, and intellectual declensions to your heart’s content.”
“Isn’t it true that some men see all humanity’s woes by harking back to the past and others by glimpsing askance at the future? There is no sense bickering with the past and its ideals, for the world has moved on. Any counsel of moderation which you may kindly proffer – the “pragmatism” of piecemeal social engineering or meliorist politics – to what may appear to you as a poor little critter spelunking caves and catacombs, remember that we are facing the greatest existential challenge known to man perpetrated by none other than that generation of the world with decades of experience and ratiocination. So worldly, in fact, that they have developed high talents for absconding from their knavery, poltroonery, and chicanery with complete impunity.”
“You are speaking such vague, moralising nonsense, dear, and with such jaundice. Truly as if your generation is the least benighted of us all.”
“Nay, we are the most, which is why the harried remnants and vexations of their wholesale patrimony – those capricious contingencies of our predecessors now institutionalised and streamlined – will irrevocably, inexorably, inenarrably be catastrophic. The rubicon has been crossed. The future is, tout court, that of ‘a boot stamping on the human face – forever.’ A geyser of perorated nonsense you were quite keen about that. A quiddity of mine that surcease from mental labour is sometimes sought in the wild, venturesome flights of fancy – the recrudescence of that old habit of procrastination. Whatever happened to those days when I waxed indignant about baculum and my particular brand of misfortune indeed.”
— 28 Dec 2018
Salisa lohavittayavikant 