LUDIC LOG

With apologies to Mssrs. Flaubert and Lapham, More Received Ideas for a New Millennium.

DISSENT: To be allowed, but not encouraged. In a dictatorship, dissent is not even allowed. Protecting dissent is not the same as allowing people to spout a lot of treasonous rubbish.

FAT: Americans are too fat, except you. Never use the word "fat"; say something else. Unless you're telling a joke. Fat people can only be in movies if they're funny men.

GENDER: Should never, ever be talked about, or should be talked about constantly. Gender is not the same as sex, unless it is.

GERMANY: Did a very, very bad thing. The thing it did was so bad that Germans are never allowed to take a moral position again. Discuss the "economic miracle". Germans have no sense of humor.

INTERNET: Mostly used for pornography and wasting time at work, but also made many people rich overnight. No one "owns" the internet. Call it "the web", but not "the net". It has changed the way we think. Use it in order to decry it (see TELEVISION).

IRONY: It's dead. No one is really sure what it was but we're all glad it's gone.

LAW: What separates us from barbarian nations -- the rule of law. If someone points out that other nations also have laws, say that ours are better, because of democracy. Say: "This is a nation of laws, not of men."

MARRIAGE: Marriage is what we say it is, and we say it is something that happens between one man and one woman. Marriage is unchanging through the arc of history; divorce, on the other hand, is fluid.

MALES: Stupid, bestial creatures who have ruined everything. Each woman is a creature unlike any other, but all men are the same. "The male intellect": a contradiction. What have men ever accomplished?

NATURAL RESOURCES: The phrase is difficult and should not be used. Don't get confused and say "national resources". If you have no choice, stress that "resources" is the important word: they call them that because we're meant to use them.

NAZIS: Comparing things that other people do to things the Nazis did is totally inappropriate unless it's killing people.

POSTMODERNISM: No one is quite sure what this is, but all agree that it has ruined everything. It has something to do with moral relativism, multiculturalism and pointy-headed intellectualism. No one knows what these things are either but they're all bad.

RACE: Terribly important, however you define it. It's urgent to know what everyone's race is. Only discuss race among people of the same race as you are.

RACISM: It's not really a problem, since we don't have it in this country anymore. To be condemned, but never pointed out, especially amont friends. Talk about "reverse racism"; blacks are more racist than whites.

TELEVISION: It has changed the world. Use it in order to decry it (see: INTERNET).

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For corn's sake, submit something to the first annual Ludic Log Reader Participation Event! E-mail me a fictional journal entry by a member of the current presidential administration. I don't wanna come out of the internet with just my dick in my hand.