On the Collapse of Civilisation
Among the many waves in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, is a trenchant and rather abstruse contribution from Guy Rundle of crikey.com.au (you may be able to read the entire piece here , if the link takes you beyond the paywall). Allow me to quote a small part: " The Right is falling apart as a political formation so fast you’d need stop-action photography to catch the process. ... The Hebdo massacre brought all these contradictions [of the Right] to the fore. Hebdo ’s nihilism is actually culturally corrosive, as conservatives charge such obscene desacrilising with being. Conservatives know that a viable culture is a closed system to a degree, and unless it has pinion points -- usually religious -- which are not themselves, by matter of custom, subject to a general back-and-forth, then it is quickly in trouble. This week, sundry idiots have been suggesting that "free speech is part of our cultural tradition". "What nonsense. "Until the 1