Saturday 2 May 2009

Triumph

There is a certain kind of person, and he seems to be invariably English, whose moments of greatest life-affirming triumph culminate in the literary ejaculation, "Thank God for America!" This ejaculation appears to have one of two contexts. Firstly, that of personal and absolute support- at least within the confines of the mental domain- for some war the US has embarked on, with, of course, its ally in intrinsic goodness, Britain; which intrinsically good acts- given the intrinsic goodness of the British and American perpetrators of the acts, the rest of the worldly inhabitants sometimes fail to recognise, such, of course, being the unfortunate but inevitable result of their lack of intrinsic goodness. The full and joyous recognition of the intrinsic goodness of all this is most purely expressed within the mentioned ejaculation of our hero; an ejaculation of full and unfeigned ecstasy, a moment of perfect distillation. The tears nearly fall from his eyes. O brotherhood!

The other context is in relation to some American television programme that makes him feel really good. Again brotherhood. In both cases the ideal in whose bosom he lives and sleeps is glorified, and so, of course, he with it.

Oh, I nearly forgot. A "literary" ejaculation as, joyous though the thought is, it is unlikely he will be quite able to experience such a letting-go of himself in the flesh, so to speak. The joyous self-transcending ejaculation can only be accomplished before a page, or more likely, a computer screen.

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