Michael Jackson as the epitome of Western Civilisation

[andrewducker]

This western libertarianism often ends up protecting madness. Nowhere is this clearer than in Jackson's love of pyjama parties and 12-year-old boys in his bed. No one feels competent to intervene because they can't tell the difference between a harmless lunatic protected by individual rights or freedoms and individual rights used to protect a harmful lunatic from scrutiny. Perhaps the smokescreen of eccentricities, talent, money and civil rights, created by Jackson, means even the protagonists don't know what's going on. Most worrying, as we advance towards a war to protect western values, is that Jacko may not be an aberration but their logical outcome.

Article here.

Comments

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I would still like to think of him as the exception rather than the rule when it comes to the evolution of Western society.... But deep down I'm afraid he isn't.

[andrewducker]

Well, one the technology gets better, I'll happily be changing my gender on a weekly basis and my appearance for popping out to the nightclubs.

Have you ever read Dancers at the end of Time?

Re:

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Yup. Most intriguing. Yet petrifying for some reason.

You know, I don't think I WOULD change my gender on a regular basis. i probably would do it a few times just to see what it was like, but without the weight of cultural construction it would still be kind of weird. As for my appearance.... I kind of like it the way it is. Unless we're talking about adding things like horns or wings or being significantly taller. I'd love to be a really tall person for a night.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd definitely be taller and stronger. I might try being a bloke for a bit but it's really the height and strength I actually want.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

As would I.

To be honest, I'm far more worried about enforced social conformity and the existence of laws and official surveillance to investigate the likes of Michael Jackson than I am about what's he's doing.

Then again, I also believe age of consent laws need major revision and find the idea of increasing eccentricity, breakdown of cultural norms and the splintering of the West into a host of tiny almost mutually incomprehensible sub-cultures to be rather appealing.