A pantheon of ugly idols

The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often virtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for a human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them—like a piece of yellow and wavy glass that distorts form and makes colour an affliction. Their trivial sentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless ennui, may be making somebody else's life no better than a promenade through a pantheon of ugly idols.

George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)


Ugly idols – yes we know about ugly idols. We also know about beings who are often virtually our interpreters of the world, or that's what they intend to be. A feather-headed government promotes itself to millions in our digital age of immediate communication.

Wind turbines obtrude themselves on distant hills, fields of solar panels are no longer fields, ugly buildings crowd ugly cities and ugly imbecilities degrade the language of public life. Everything we buy and numerous aspects of life reflect the ugly reality of central diktat.