Saturday 2 November 2024
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.
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4 comments:
We must oppose ugliness in all its forms … just look at the London landscape now.
"The beings closest to us..."
With most beings, we can escape from them. There's even a pop-psychology minor industry which tells us how to recognise and avoid "toxic" individuals.
The problem with government, though, is that our relationship is both intimate and enforced. They never leave us alone, and demand to change our behaviour like a critical spouse. The claim to act in our name. And we pay money to support them. In the case of Peter Lynch, it was like being murdered by a violent abusive partner.
Anon - I haven't been to London for years but I know what you mean. Horrible place, won't be going again.
Sam - yes, our relationship is both intimate and enforced. It seems to be changing us too, in that far too many seem to adapt and get on with their lives, although there are undercurrents too. The speed of Starmer's popularity decline was interesting.
I dislike London on the whole: my deah, the noise and the people! Notwithstanding we once opted for a few days holiday as tourists there. A warm late September I think. We stayed in an apartment hotel.
We breakfasted at Patisserie Valerie, Harrods was our corner shop. We dined once on a boardwalk along the south bank, looking immediately at a beautifully illuminated Tower Bridge. We enjoyed the National Portrait Gallery. We had planned on seeing a West End play but the theatre had turned off its air conditioning so was sweltering. Not for us.
Jolly good but, on the other hand, we have no desire to repeat it.
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