The former governor of the state, now a professor, cleared her throat nervously, aware that she was about to change things. “Thank you,” she said. “These days, we react to journalism and criticism, not to mention poetry and prose, differently because we react to writing differently. We react to writing differently because we react to language differently. We react to language differently because the constant onslaught of symbols has addicted us to the presence of symbols in general while devaluating each individual symbol. The compulsive mind that results, desperate for the novelty that new symbols represent, unable to determine the truth-value or moral content of those symbols, in fact uninterested in determining either, is a mind that is not lit up from within but rather from nearby, even as it sinks deeper into darkness.” A man in the crowd jumped up, holding a pistol. “This is devilry,” he said. “And now I will end it, not with a symbol, but with a true and irreversible action.” He pulled the trigger but all that came out was a BANG flag.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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