Looks like a push mower to Satan
Thinking again about the desperate need to find words, sacraments, cultures and civilizations that Satan can't ruin.

It's too late to face Satan head-on. Too many big institutions have joined his side. God's side has no horsepower in this part of the world. I'm trying to think of ways to maintain a sane culture without simply surrendering. So far I've looked at: (1) Semantic Secession, slipping away from the ruined items and switching to concepts or procedures that Satan hasn't noticed yet. This strategy can't work for very long, because Satan WILL figure it out and quickly start poisoning the new stuff. (2) Find institutions or concepts that are intrinsically unchangeable. [Later: Not sure if these exist. See end of this entry.]

Now I see a possible (3): Find ways of maintaining culture that are simply boring to the devils.

In the plain physical world where ordinary thieves steal ordinary stuff, is there a way of permanently avoiding theft without high-cost security? Yes. Thieves have a reliable set of standards. They only steal things that can be resold among thieves. In practice this means things that use lots of power or make lots of noise.

Objects that don't use energy or make noise, like manual lawn mowers or ladders, sit outside through all seasons and never get taken. A thief loses status by stealing uncool things. He will endure constant harassment and teasing from competitors or cellmates.

Power tools and smartphones and audio systems and hot-rod-able cars get stolen instantly. Thieves gain status AND MONEY from these items.

So.... In the realm of cultural practices, rewards, punishments, sacraments, words and thoughts, what's the equivalent of a push mower or a ladder? Which items, or which ruinations, will cause a local media or government Satan to get mocked and humiliated by superior Satans?

= = = = =

A bit later: No, this isn't properly separate from the 'unalterable' category. In the previous item I used Morse as an example of unalterables. Satan's inquisitors have turned spoken language into an ever-changing minefield. If you say the wrong word, or say the right word in the wrong tone, or fail to use ALL of the right words, or say ALL of the right words in the right tone without possessing a genetic license to speak, it's Gulag time. Morse has escaped the inquisitors. But NOT because Morse is undesecratable. Only because Morse is uncool in exactly the same way that push mowers are uncool. Not worth the trouble of spoiling. There may be an intrinsically unalterable concept or action somewhere, but Morse ain't it.

Cartoon for previous item:


Corrected version:


Logically speaking this is strange since both Morse and push mowers are exclusively used by white males! Both should be Instant Gulag Material, ready for Carbon-Neutral Burning At The Recycled Stake. But there's no point in using logic. Satan destroys logic first. The only hope is to be maximally uninteresting.

Labels: 20th century Dark Age, defensible spaces

  ¶ 5:27 PM