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April 5, 2010
Cargo Cults in America
When Barack Obama, Orator,speaks in loud booming sonorous tones about (whatever the hell it is he's talking about), and people (whom I guarantee you don't know what the hell he's saying and won't remember the substance of it two minutes after hearing it) praise what a great Orator he is and all that, this is essentially cargo-cult behavior centered around imitation of video clips of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Obama is trying to invoke the effect of being an MLK-like figure, i.e. to be popular and adored; the audience is trying to reenact the inspiring experience of listening to an MLK-like figure. If both sides play along, both succeed in getting what they want.) Similarly, passing a "historic" health care bill whose contents nobody voting on it understands or even has looked into is, likewise, cargo-cult behavior based on mimicking the mythical "New Deal" era. -- The Cult Of Superman's Father « Rhymes With Cars & Girls
Posted by Vanderleun at April 5, 2010 11:06 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.