BEYOND SUCH BASIC CONSIDERATIONS there were loftier matters motivating my curiosity about what made (or would make) the American housewife tick literary masterpiecewise. Was she or was she not capable of dealing with sentences containing more than 7 or 8 words—some of which might themselves contain 4 or 5 syllables! Would she be able to decipher the secret messages I was sending to her alone in what might seem like the impersonal pages of an ordinary bestseller?56 In short: As someone who'd never written a Blockbusting Book (my 16 volume History of the Morons isn't likely to ever fall into that category) I had to find out what turned American women on readingwise. Given my expertise in the romancing of Morons, and the similarities between all females in most other respects, such an inquiry might seem unnecessary. But for reasons I needn't burden you with now,57 the addiction to reading trashy romances is one of the few vices Moronettes and -esses don't share with their American sisters. While there isn't enough time and space here for me to elaborate on such details, the fruits of my laborious research into the fatal attraction American women so secretly have for reading smut that is "intellectually respectable" they are quite unaware of having it—speak for themselves in the way I've written this novel.
Having just made a statement which is bound to be construed by some as proof of my unmitigated male chauvinism (and a flagrant breech of the chivalry expected from authors by their ladylike readers) let me add this: Were it not for the dormant potential to appreciate the finer things in life I found in virtually all the ordinary American housewives whose innermost yearnings for sociocultural enrichment I probed so deeply, I would have abandoned any hopes I ever had for reversing the decline of Western Civilization. Contrary to the impressions I may have inadvertently created so far about what might appear to be the psychopathic sexism of a literary rapist, my faith in the future of mankind is rooted firmly in the bedrock of American (and Moronic) womanhood—the fertilizing of whose incipient (or embryonic) SocioCultural and NeoEgalitarian aspirations will, if I fully discharge my evangelical duty, result from the reading of this book divine providence has ordained me to write.
What I learned about American men on my crosscountry travels did not, unfortunately, provide me with much more encouragement than that which male Morons generally inspire for the prospects of bringing about a New World Order through the writing of a novel. There were, however, what seemed at the time as if they might be exceptions to such a depressing rule. When, for instance, my Winnebago broke down outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma a passing jeepload of oil field roustabouts stopped, rolled up their collective sleeves and, with a gratifying display of good samaritanism, spit and "Okie ingenuity," got me rolling again toward the nearest truckstop. Once safely there we bonded our newlyformed friendship with glasses of Bud repeatedly raised in toasts to such uplifting notions as: The superior size and shape of hooters that were homegrown in the fertile soil of the Sooner state; Resisting to the death any further erosion of the constitutional right to own as many goddamm handguns as some sonofabitch sees himself fit to goddamm own, and; kicking the living shit out of the coons, queers and eggheaded kikes who refused to remain where they belonged—stuck at the goddamm bottom of the goddamm American melting pot!
The halfcentury I spent in Moronia forced me to reluctantly conclude that, depending entirely on the circumstances in which he found himself: The average Moron was just as likely to be a revolutionary freedomfighter as he was a Nazi stormtrooper. So, after spending 5 years reacquainting myself with America I was back where I had started, which is: While one would like to believe otherwise, the plain truth is: People of all nationalities are essentially the same when it comes to the helterskelter way they live their lives. Whether they be Morons, Americans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Swedes, Tongans—or even Swiss—they respond to life's firealarms with an emotional panic instead of calmly exercising their critical faculties before walking to the nearest exit (should the alarm indeed prove not be a false one). Such is the "bliss" of our ignorance that no matter how repeatedly it punishes us we persist in extolling it—or all the other names by which it is known (ie., "Jeffersonian Egalitarianism," "One Man/Moron One Vote," "common sense," etc.)—as a virtue!
While, as some have said,58 predicting how any average human being will respond when intellectually crunched is a psychiatric crapshoot, it's one in which I have always believed the dice were loaded against a reasonable outcome. Yet despite this irrational streak running down the center of every Homo sapiens' brain, throughout their histories most societies have somehow managed to rise above the aggregated stupidity of their individual members—and in some cases even become civilizations. But those histories also teach us that, so far at least, every civilization is doomed from its birth to decline and fall. The causes for this rising and falling have been endlessly debated by scholars, but the explanation is, I believe, simply this: While civilizations seem to overcome the intellectual drag exerted by their average citizens when launching themselves, eventually their upward thrust is arrested by the downward pull of mass ignorance. And, like those cartoon characters who remains airborne for several seconds after they run off the edge of a cliff, sooner or later the law of gravity catches up to even the loftiest empires. Unlike a cartoon, however, the sinking of these titanic sociocultural entities is usually so gradual (and so metaphysical) it is seldom noticed by its passengers. Which brings us to the question of whether the decline of any civilization, and that of Western Civilization in particular, can be reversed. And if so, could such an unprecedented feat be brought about by: (a) A single human being; (b) A bestselling novel; (c) A revolutionary manifesto; (d) An artistic masterpiece, or; (e) All of the above?
But before I deal with what you must be thinking is an inexcusably selfserving question, allow me to briefly lay out the conceptual basis on which my answer will be predicated.
FIRST: The fate of Western Civilization is, I think any reasonable person will agree, linked directly to that of its principal protagonist which, for reasons we needn't bother ourselves about now,59 providence has chosen to be the United States of America.SECOND: Since for analytical purposes Moronia and America are mirror images of each other, understanding America's titanic sociocultural problems will be much easier if their scale is reduced to that found in Moronia's microcosmic60 scheme of things.
THIRD: I can think of no setting more appropriate for telling the story of Western Civilization's resurrection than the landscape in which Jack F. Klutz was destined to live and die for just such a noble purpose. It is for these reasons I was (and still am) convinced the seemingly hopeless task of reversing Western Civilization's decline can be accomplished by my writing (and your reading) of this Great American Novel masquerading as a WakeupCall Addressed To The Citizens Of Moronia.
Consequently, there can only be one correct answer to the foregoing question, which is—(e) All of the above.
Having finally (I hope) put to rest any lingering doubts you might still have had about the "quixotic" nature of this One Man Crusade I'm waging—and with my epiphany only a few pages away—there isn't much more for me to do except tie up the few remaining loose ends that will complete my explanation of how and why I found myself at the corner of Hollywood & Vine.
ACTUALLY, ONE OF THESE "LOOSE ENDS" concerns the rather substantial issue of the causal nexus between Americanstyle egalitarianism and the deluge of mediocrity in which Western Civilization is now drowning. About which the more knowledgeable reader may have some reservations over the suitability of using Moronia as a paradigmG for analyzing the malaise afflicting First World nations. As I have myself observed in History of the Morons there are some rather profound differences between the IgnoranceIsBliss ethos of the Morons and that of the Americans when it comes to this crucial issue: While both they and we exalt mediocrity as the highest of all democratic values, the American credo is considerably more tolerant of those who deviate from the norm. Although Morons make no secret of their loathing for Highbrows61—and, indeed, proactively persecute them whenever they can—in our country such overt antagonism is rarely the case. In point of fact, the subject of highbrowism rarely raises its ugly head during the normal course of an average American conversation. If an American intelligentsia really does exist,62 it is so discreet as to have completely vanished from the everyday social scene. Even the word—"intelligentsia"—has disappeared from all but the most antiquated of our dictionaries.
This doesn't mean, however, the average American is any less antiIntellectual than he has always been. The seeds of resentment (and envy) sewn in the American psyche when it was one of England's farflung colonial stepchildren have flowered into an inferiority complex equal to that pervading Moronia's neurotic cultural (what there is of it) land scape. The manner in which these 2 soulmated societies oppress the "eggheaded elitists" in their midst who challenge the "selfevident truth" that all men are born equally mediocre differ in method only. While the Morons pursue a more overt (some might say "honest") policy of actually criminalizing Highbrowism,63 in America those seeking to upset the egalitarian applecart are discouraged from doing so by the sheer lack of attention they receive from a society whose collective mind has been put to sleep by its over indulgence on a diet of muzak, eyecandy and mental junkfood. One can debate the moral pros and cons64 of how Americans and Morons solve (what they perceive to be) the same problem; but as a practical matter, while the Moronic persecution of sociocultural troublemakers ("Weisenheimers") might be more effective—and certainly more hazardous to a Highbrow's health—it is infinitely preferable to someone with my rabblerousing aspirations. Waging a solitary crusade to save an entire civilization is a dubious proposition under any circumstances, but shouting a WakeupCall to America against the cacophonous clamor of all those other crazies, cranks and prophets of doom babbling away on its airwaves65 would seem to be asking for more trouble than even someone with my celestial affiliations66 can be reasonably expected to handle.
And yet there I was—facing an army of Philistines with nothing in my sling but an audacious idea! The question was: Could I, as David did,67 triumph over such apparently insurmountable odds with just that single stroke of (divinely inspired) genius by which I decided to write my manifesto for America's salvation in the form of a nonfiction novel about Moronia? Not that I was embarking on a literary trail which was altogether unblazed. Far from it! Any American woman with even a rudimentary knowledge of such pioneering social satirists as Swift, Clemens and Orwell couldn't fail to see I had set Morons Awake! in the "distant and makebelieve68 land of Moronia" so my readers' objectivity wouldn't be unduly prejudiced by the love of their own country. But how many American women have acquired a knowledge of literature sufficient for seeing through a scheme so fullyfrontalized as mine is? According to my diagnosis of America's educational shortcomings that number had to be next to nil. On the other hand, should my diagnosis turn out to be erroneous—if American women by the hundreds of thousands were sufficiently learned to recognize my literary deception for what it really was—it wouldn't matter because: The very reason for my writing Morons Awake! would have (happily) evaporated into the thin air of its own futility!69
Because the subject has just been raised, let us spend what little time remains (before our rendezvous with that barebosomed platinumblonde sexgoddess steadily approaching the corner of Hollywood & Vine in her tailfinnedandfully chromedflamingopinkchariot )comparing the American and Moronic educational philosophies. While America and Moronia are both fanatically dedicated to the preservation of ignorance, they diverge rather sharply on the means for achieving that blissful goal. Our educators believe children should be brought into a school (or preferably a preschool) room at the earliest possible age. In this way the natural curiosity even infants have about the world into which they are born can be arrested before the "bad habits" such future citizens learn on their own (or are taught by "unqualified" parents) make the laundering of their brains overly irksome—or in some advanced cases of "autodidactic delinquency," hopelessly impossible. This explains why America led the world in making its public education system compulsory and universal. In that way no American youngster could escape being institutionalized for at least 12 (and preferably 15 or 16) of his or her first 17 years. As for the few mavericks who now and then manage to elude the truant officer, or engage in any other rebellious acts of mental independence,70 when eventually caught (as they are all bound to be) their punishment is no less draconian than that inflicted by the Gestapo or KGB on saboteurs and traitors to the vaterland. If not surgically lobotomized, the brains of those students disrupting the educational status quo are remediated into a vegetative state rendering them incapable of entertaining even the slightest reservation about the political rectitude of mediocrity.
On the other hand, as one might expect, the Morons are far less doctrinaire when it comes to preserving the blissful innocence of their young. Moronic youngsters aren't required to attend school until they are 13—an age at which they have all but ceased being children.71 While this is due in no small part to the lackadaisical attitude Morons have toward most things in life, their laissez-faire approach to educational policy is not wholly devoid of premeditation. Although their "reasoning" on the question of when one's formal schooling should begin is overlysimplistic by our "enlightened" standards, it is also indisputable that: Since, being Morons, any school system they devise is bound to be a bad one, the exposure of their children to it should be minimized to the maximum possible extent! Accordingly, the average Moron receives 3.6 years of public schooling compared to the average American's 11.4. And, while Moronia perennially occupies the bottom of the world's student achievement ladder—with the USA only a rung or 2 higher, the Morons' logic of shortening what they perceive as a hopelessly lost cause would seem to be vindicated.
As for the societal consequences flowing from 2 such divergent educational philosophies, once again there isn't all that much separating our countries—and one can even argue that in some respects the Morons have the advantage simply by reason of the stupendous intellectual, economic and geopolitical odds they overcame in attaining what little indigenous "civilization" they claim as their own. Nevertheless, like America, the arrested intellectual development resulting from Moronia's "successful" policy of fostering stupidity has produced a nation more closely resembling the studentbody of a highschool than it does a modern nationstate populated by mature adults. And, far from being contrite about the delinquent condition of his country's sociocultural affairs, the average Moron is no less truculent than his opposite American number in defending the virtues of ignorance—not the least of which is the bliss of believing one's youth can be (more or less) eternal. This refusal by adult Morons to accept the harsher realities of life generally, and that relating to their mortality in particular, is reflected in their addiction to the kind of infantile entertainment on which adult Americans habitually opiate themselves. Hence the popularity of those mindless "sitcoms" featuring middleaged (if not geriatric) characters whose adolescent raison d'etre consists of "dating" another superannuated character with an equally childish purpose in life. The same can be said about the "tastes" shared by Morons and Americans for such other juvenile pastimes as day- and primetime soapopera,72 mudwrestling,73 talkshows,74 demolitionderbies,75 Super bowl halftime extravaganzas,76 horrorfilms77 and that deafening, undifferentiated racket known as "pop music"78—to name but a few.
In recent times, of course, the "blissfulness" of ignorance has lost a good deal of its ideological luster. The skies over Moronia and America have grown dark with the gathering clouds of what's stareting to look like a downpour of Biblical proportions. The flightpaths leading to Washington and Moronville are congested with the returning flocks of allegorical chickens seeking a place to roost. With alarming regularity cracks appear in the facades of institutions that were once considered to be indestructible. Tugged by warring multiculturalists the once untearable social fabric of meltingpot egalitarianism lies in tatters. And the gravitational pull of history can be seen exerting itself in the downwardness of every trend whose rising once seemed unstoppable. In short: For both Moronia and America the consequences of their educational folly have become so numerous they can no longer be swept under the carpet of complacency.
Book One Chapter 3 Part 3 Return to Index
Footnotes
56 Were it not, of course, for these footnotes.
57 See Appendix III, Chapter 68 (Etiology Of The Female Moron's Sexual Gestalt), History of the Morons, wherein the results of my extensive personal research into the childhood origins of the mature Moroness' attitudes toward soft- and hardcore pornography. Suffice it to say here that, based on my recent experiences, they differ significantly from those of the mature American woman, probably due in no small measure to the "backward" view still held by most Morons about the virtues of chastity, modesty and marital fidelity. While the ease with which I seduced so many Moronettes and -esses might seem to contradict this, being both an American and an intellectual, I was regarded by my conquests as an exception to rules formulated with only male Morons in mind. Additionally, even if such behavior is considered illogical or hypocritical, according to another archaic attitude the Morons have toward such things, females are not expected to be either logical or overly scrupulous in matching their convictions with their deeds.
58 Those who still try to draw subtle distinctions between, say, the congenital villainy of an Adolf Eichmann and the "situational" knavery of a William Calley, would have us believe the issue of human morality can only be judged on a casebycase basis. The flaw in this argument is, I believe, that massmurder, like any other irrational behavior, isn't a moral issue but a rational one. Since the eventual outcome of all war (or civilian) crimes invariably proves to be counterproductive for its perpetrators, as well as for its victims, such acts can only be described as resulting from a defective (or unperformed) intellectual analysis. Although I probably stand alone in holding such a radical opinion, it is my belief a similar conclusion can be reached about the catastrophic consequences of those choices we make so casually about the people we marry, the politicians we elect, the television shows we watch and, of course, the books we read.
59 There is no doubt in my mind Morons Awake! will be construed by some as nothing more than an act of literary flagburning. The Klutz Affair conspirators who seek to vilify me will stop at nothing to impugn the patriotism I have so amply demonstrated by what amounted to my 50year sentence of penal servitude as the ambassador to Moronia. I am therefore taking this opportunity to set the record straight on my true feelings about the country of my birth, which are: That America is no better, and certainly no worse, than any other nation. Its citizens are neither more nor less virtuous than those enjoying the citizenship of countries inclined to toss the occasional stone of snobbish reproach at America's dominant role in the creation of a worldwide "pop" culture. Having said that, however, I would be less than honest if I didn't acknowledge that, given the riches of its cultural legacy and the abundance of its natural resources, America must be held to a standard higher than that of all other societies when measuring its achievements (or lack thereof) against the potential it had for becoming the social, economic and cultural beacon dreamt of by such utopianminded American supermen as Franklin, Jefferson and Lincoln. After nearly 400 years of history, when judged by such a strict standard, America's reportcard contains far too many Cs. But in historical terms 400 years still leaves some time for a society to mend its educational ways before receiving its final grade. So, like any teacher worth his or her salt, I have taken a stern, but fundamentally benevolent, view of America's prospects for ultimately passing the test of its civilizational greatness.
60 It is never pleasant to perform this kind of exploratory surgery on one's own society. Indeed, we can attribute the lack of objectivity in such analytical procedures as a major reason why empires and civilizations seem incapable of selfdiagnosing the reasons for their decline. Hence the significance of my discovery that Moronia can be used as a model for scrutinizing in miniature (and slow motion) the sociocultural dynamics at work in more normallysized societies. And, because the Morons have always been perceived at best as being nothing more than social guineapigs or anthropological canonfodder, one is apt to be more objective about their behavioral peccadilloes than about those of one's own breed.
61 As with my exemption from the normal attitude of Moronic women toward marital infidelity, being an American and a diplomat my elitist mentality was considered par for the course by most Morons of both sexes. In fact any attempt Americans make to deliberately lower their IQ to the level of an average Moron is viewed by the average Moron as hypocritical, condescending—and quite unnecessary: Since the inferiority of Morons to all things American has been an article of Moronic faith from the time Moronia plagiarized our Declaration of Independence in the writing of its own egalitarian manifesto.
62 Simply asking such a question indicates how dire the American situation is and would, regrettably, seem to beg its own answer.
63 According to Section VII of Moronia's Penal Code: "Any deed, conduct, behavior, expression, idea or thought tending to disparage, calumniate, slander, criticize or in any other way challenge the selfevident and sacred principle of One Moron One Vote is punishable by whatever sentence, including death, deemed necessary for maintaining the domestic tranquillity of Moronia."
64 If there is a moral high ground here, it can be argued the Morons occupy it strictly by reason of the proactive position they have taken to support what they believe (no matter how mistakenly) is a Holy Cause.
65 Not to mention cluttering the print media with letters to the editor, pamphlets, tracts, sermons, exposés, ideological novels and manifestos.
66 Which entitles one to believe he will be the beneficiary of the occasional miracle or deus ex machinaG when all else fails.
67 Or even surpass what was his rather parochial, and not altogether unprecedented, act of marksmanship over brawn?
68 Unlike Lilliputia, no matter how microscopic it might be, Moronia's geopolitical existence is a fact that cannot be denied.
69 While such an eventuality would deprive me of a Nobel Prize and a place in the pantheon of writers who raised alarms similar to the one I was contemplating, being no less an American patriot than I am a JewishIntellectual, I would gracefully—nay, joyfully!—accept that oblivion into which all false prophets sink.
70 By, for instance, reading books of their own choosing on subjects not specified in (or even prohibited by) the stateapproved syllabus.
71 There are many theories to explain the early onset of Moronic adulthood—a diet consisting almost exclusively of turnips being one of them. My own opinion is, because they are freer to enjoy their childhoods, with the onset of puberty they are less inclined to cling to them as tenaciously as we Americans do. Indeed, I am not the first to make the case that the juvenile state of American society results from its "educational incarceration" policy—a policy that not only arrests the mental development of its inmates, but their psychosexual development as well. Hence the feeling I had during my recent American travels that I was actually touring the coasttocoast campus of some vast high (or junior high) school!—from which nobody ever did, or wanted to, graduate. How else can one explain phenomena that seems so peculiar to Americans as their preoccupation with youthfulness, their adulation of athletes and the way they conduct presidential politics as if it were a studentbody popularity contest?
72 Can any indictment of their respective societies be more profoundly demoralizing than the fact that millions of American (and hundreds of Moronic) housewives have nothing better to do with their time and minds than to waste them on the worst kind of massmedia mush?
73 It isn't easy to resist reaching the most dire conclusions about the Darwinian prospects for a society whose males relish these crass spectacles of contrived sexual perversity.
74 Calling them "talkshows" rather than "thinking programs" isn't the "inconsequential semantic distinction" those who host these democratic gabfests would have us believe. In egalitarian terms all forms of talking—whether it is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Nixon's Watergate Tapes or the gossip one exchanges with one's hairdresser—are equal. Criticizing the content of a speech for its literary or forensic merit is considered not simply impolite by Americans and Morons, but a threat to the domestic tranquillity of their respective nations should such a rude practice ever become socially acceptable. Hence the popularity of television shows and other massmedia forums where every participant is entitled to his or her opinion—and the absence from the American and Moronic lexicons of the otherwise universal adage that "talk is cheap."
75 What can one say about this American and Moronic version of the Roman Circus, except that it's a bloodless phenomenon and one that might even represent some inchoateG revulsion for the materialistic milieu from which it springs?
76 During one of which I heard a color commentator express his amazement because one of the players who had majored in Russian literature as an undergraduate continued reading the novels of Dostoyevski, Tolstoi and Gogol for no other reason than the personal pleasure he got from so doing!
77 Which are nothing more than multimillion dollar versions of the terrifying campfire stories all masochistic juveniles hope some sadistic counselor will tell them.
78 On this point Egalitarians and Elitists lock antlers in the most ferocious of all their struggles for cultural supremacy. And, despite the perspicacityG of those like myself who define music in classical terms which have been accepted for centuries, it is a struggle we have the greatest difficulty in winning when the arguments are made that "auditory beauty is in the ear of its listener" and "one man's music is another man's noise."
Glossary
deus ex machina noun [NL, a god from a machine, trans. of Gk theos ek mechanes](1697) 1 : a god introduced by means of a crane in ancient Greek and Roman drama to decide the final outcome 2 : a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty
inchoate adj [L inchoatus, pp. of inchoare to start work on: being only partly in existence or operation; esp : imperfectly formed or formulated
perspicacious adj [L perspicac-, perspicax, fr. perspicere](1640) : of acute mental vision or discernment : KEEN syn see SHREWD ¦ perspicacity n
paradigm noun [LL paradigma, fr. Gk paradeigma, fr. paradeiknynai to show side by side, fr. para- + deiknynai to show 1 : EXAMPLE, PATTERN; esp : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype 2 : an example of a conjugation or declension showing a word in all its inflectional forms 3 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated