MH - Wish I'd Written That...

I don't normally write about the quotes I put up here - contrary to what some people might think, there's no agenda involved in selecting them other than that I, as a writer, occasionally take a real liking to the way somebody said something. Usually it's something I'm currently reading or have just seen. Sometimes, it strikes me as profound or moving. Almost always, it's superior writing to what I could come up with. The way I look at it is that if it's good enough to read out loud to my wife, it's good enough to share with you.

However, I did want to add something to this terrific quote from Tom Wolfe's great college-bashing novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. I'll refer to other quotes from this book from time to time, but this one really nails it. Wolfe is talking about the elitists in college academia, but he might just as well be talking about the elites in Corporate America, the Mainstream Media, Mainline Protestant churches (with a few heterodox Catholic ones thrown in for good measure), or any of the other self-proclaimed "guardians of the truth:"

Both believed passionately in protecting minorities, particularly Arfican Americans, as well as Jews. Both regarded Israel as the most important nation on earth, although neither was tempted to live there. Both instinctively sided with the underdog; police violence really got them steamed. Both were firm believers in diversity and multiculturalism in colleges. Both believed in abortion, not so much because they thought anyone they knew might want an abortion as because legalizing it helped put an exhausted and dysfunctional Christendom and its weird, hidebound religious restraints in their place. For the same reason, both believed in gay rights, women's rights, transgender rights, fox, bear, wolf, swordfish, halibut, ozone, wetland, and hardwood rights, gun control, contemporary art, and the Democratic Party. Both were against hunting and, for that matter, woods, fields, mountain trails, rock climbing, sailing, fishing, and the outdoors in general, except for golf courses and the beach.

As usual, nobody (or very, very few) say it as well as Tom Wolfe, who knows how to stick in the sword a little more and give it a twist. Like more? Try Radical Chic for starters.