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10.08.2008

We are coordinated / The guard is manifold

Sitting on a balcony overlooking the bay, sipping a rum punch as the sun went down, I reflected that the exercise of power conveys a weird sensation of ease and tranquility. (I wonder how many of the ten men in the guardhouse will be alive tomorrow. It amuses me to think of them cutting each other's throats over a bottle of poisened spirits.)
The summary dispatching of the two Inquisitors was based on a precept long used by the Inquisition itself, which is in fact the way they were able to maintain their power despite widespread opposition and hatred. Brutal sanctions against a minority from which one is generically exempt cannot but produce a measure of satisfaction in those who are spared such treatment: "As decent clergymen you have nothing to fear." Thus the burning of the Jews, Moors, and Sodomites produces a certain sense of confort in those that are not Jews, Moors, or Sodomites: "This won't happen to me." To turn this mechanism back on the Inquisitors themselves gives me a feeling of taking over the office of fate. I am become the bad karma of Inquisition. I am allowing myself also the satisfaction that derives from a measure of hypocrisy, rather like the slow digestion of a good meal.
William S. Borroughs - Cities of the red night (1981)

2 comments:

P.A. said...

Pronto... deu-lhe para os 80's! Finalmente!!! Já está nos livros, next step Kim Wilde, Spandau Ballet, ABC e Adam and The Ants!
Isto quem espera sempre alcança!!!

Graven said...

Ora essa, eu que ando todos os dias a abanar o cocuruto nos transportes ao som de Human League tenho de ver estas injurias contra a minha pessoa no meu próprio blog. E eu que tenho o best of e tudo! Para além disso, sabes muito bem que eu sou um sub-urbano depressivo e como tal prefiro a negritude de Joy Division, Bauhaus e afins.

(Ok, admito, Human League dos Digitalism versão Kitsuné Tabloid, mas ainda assim é 80s!)