02-12-2020, 07:14 PM
From a book from 1991 that I was about to discard... BAD, or the Dumbing of America by Paul Fussell.
The topic isn't simply the substandard that everyone recognizes as such and does not pretend is anything other than awful -- such as tetanus, a smelly cat-box, junk mail, or the weather on Mount Washington, Vermont. Such things are merely bad. The truly BAD is something awful that people defend or even promote as good that is at best mediocre, such as the "rich Corinthian leather" that Chrysler touted in very ordinary cars. America has oodles of bad colleges and "universities", graduation from which prepares one for nothing. Nobody would confuse Regents University (formerly CBN University associated with Pat Robertson) or Liberty University (associated with Jerry Falwell) with the renowned University of Virginia that no less a figure than Thomas Jefferson (one of the brightest men of his day) founded. But even that is better than fake schools that take one's money and grant one a Bachelor's or Master's degree, let alone a PhD, as did (this is me and not Paul Fussell) "Patriot University" which has a physical plant about the size of a ranch house that granted a PhD to the horrible Kent Hovind, promoter of young-earth Creationism and who might have taken an accounting course that might have taught him the consequences of tax fraud.
But here's a segment on Donald Trump from 1991 (page 93):
Were there more after 1991 (Fussell is no longer with us), then we would have plenty of examples of Donald Trump would qualify in many ways as BAD -- bad behavior (I grab them by their [crotches]), bad television (The Apprentice, which I found easy to "fire"); Trump steaks and Trump Vodka (how could one fail with either?), his involvement with the failed USFL and the Trump Shuttle airline... not to mention the horrid Trump University, not to be confused with fine schools named after such plutocrats as Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Colgate. His hotel and casino businesses have not fared well.
Trump is BAD -- hideous, yet given to overweening self-pride.
The topic isn't simply the substandard that everyone recognizes as such and does not pretend is anything other than awful -- such as tetanus, a smelly cat-box, junk mail, or the weather on Mount Washington, Vermont. Such things are merely bad. The truly BAD is something awful that people defend or even promote as good that is at best mediocre, such as the "rich Corinthian leather" that Chrysler touted in very ordinary cars. America has oodles of bad colleges and "universities", graduation from which prepares one for nothing. Nobody would confuse Regents University (formerly CBN University associated with Pat Robertson) or Liberty University (associated with Jerry Falwell) with the renowned University of Virginia that no less a figure than Thomas Jefferson (one of the brightest men of his day) founded. But even that is better than fake schools that take one's money and grant one a Bachelor's or Master's degree, let alone a PhD, as did (this is me and not Paul Fussell) "Patriot University" which has a physical plant about the size of a ranch house that granted a PhD to the horrible Kent Hovind, promoter of young-earth Creationism and who might have taken an accounting course that might have taught him the consequences of tax fraud.
But here's a segment on Donald Trump from 1991 (page 93):
Quote:When Donald Trump brags that he is going to turn the Plaza Hotel in New York into "the most luxurious hotel in the world" , we know that his idea of "luxury' pivots on nugatory turndowns and unwanted candies at bedtime".
Were there more after 1991 (Fussell is no longer with us), then we would have plenty of examples of Donald Trump would qualify in many ways as BAD -- bad behavior (I grab them by their [crotches]), bad television (The Apprentice, which I found easy to "fire"); Trump steaks and Trump Vodka (how could one fail with either?), his involvement with the failed USFL and the Trump Shuttle airline... not to mention the horrid Trump University, not to be confused with fine schools named after such plutocrats as Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Colgate. His hotel and casino businesses have not fared well.
Trump is BAD -- hideous, yet given to overweening self-pride.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.