Thursday, January 8, 2009

The King vs. Facism

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has a tremendous piece up at TCSDaily laying out a surprisingly persuasive arguement that Elvis Presley saved the world from fascism.

At first I thought he was joking but having read his perspective, I now believe he has a rather strong position.

This is a good bit but read the whole thing! I especially like the insult, "you look like a congressman."

If what you want is to dress up funny and bond with a lot of other people in front of a great light show, well, you don't need the Nazis to do it anymore - even in Berlin. Since Elvis, the bonding-and-catharsis element of mass media has expanded to outdo anything that any politician can deliver. We describe an especially popular politician today as looking "like a rock star," rather than the other way around, after all. (Could there be a worse insult than describing a rock musician as looking "like a Congressman?" I can't think of one.) And if you're a working-class guy with lousy prospects, well, you can learn to play guitar, or to make music on your computer, and then you, too have a chance at being the guy under the lights - and without having to invade Russia.

No comments:

Post a Comment