Daniel Rigney
- Location
- New Texas, USA
- Birthday
- August 01
- Title
- free-range writer
- Bio
- In this writing workshop and citizen's
blog I'm exploring various short forms, often from a satiric angle. My
interests include politics, culture and the human comedy; old and new
media; social theory and urban life; the commercialization,
corporatization and tabloidization of everything; sustainability;
Unitarianism (UU); coffee; and writing (sorry, I mean providing
content). Turtle stamp is from Tandy Leather.
Interested in republishing a piece? Contact drigney3@gmail.com.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Dispatch from Houston: Jill
Stein and the Green New Deal
February 24, 2015 05:15PM - Introducing the Tangible
Hologram
February 19, 2015 11:59PM - Introducing the iMaster
February 09, 2015 11:22AM - Human Error
February 06, 2015 04:13PM - Suburban Studies
January 25, 2015 03:32PM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “The mayor of Los Angeles
replied that he doesn't want
to
appear rude, but De
Blas…”
March 10, 2015 01:11AM - “I've just seen the video
of the OU frat chant. Its even
seems
to include a
refere…”
March 09, 2015 06:42PM - “I note with interest
that the less hawkish
alternative to the
right-wing
Likud Pa…”
March 09, 2015 06:29PM - “I love that picture of
Hillary at the top. Was
that
photoshopped, or is she
just…”
March 09, 2015 06:10PM - “"Don't Stop Thinking
About Tomorrow" -- Fleetwood
Mac. Oh,
wait. You
re…”
March 09, 2015 06:07PM
Daniel Rigney's Links
- MY LINKS
- The Metaphorical Society
- Matthew Effects
JANUARY 20, 2015 4:39PM
The Cynic's Dictionary
By Daniel Rigney
(with apologies to Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”)
Like most of us, I have an evil twin. While the better angels of my nature tug me toward a life of a high-minded idealism, my evil twin keeps whispering reasons why idealism is futile.
My twin says the idealist me reminds him of Sisyphus, condemned by the Greek gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down again – and again and again -- before it reaches the summit.
My cynical twin has composed the following glossary of terms that every hard-bitten political realist (because reality bites) should know before foolishly putting the shoulder to the boulder. Let me be clear that my better self did not write these entries, and takes issue with all of them.
Altruism: the sentimental fiction that human beings are capable of caring for anyone’s interests but their own. (See also “Basic Assumptions of Classical Economics.”)
Backroomocracy: the governing principle that in nearly every organization, all important decisions are made in back rooms that you’re not in. (See “Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy.”) Just accept this.
Citizens United: plutocrats unleashed. (See “Buying Laws,” "U.S. Supreme Court.”)
Climate Change: global warming and its correlates, in response to which we have only two options – denial and despair. Either we can deny the emerging and accelerating climate crisis (“It’s a hoax,” “Climate scientists don’t know much,” or “Let’s hit the snooze button for now.”) Or, after a brief Oh-My-God moment, we can go directly into paralytic despair. (As Al Gore says, “Despair is not just a tire in the trunk.”) Either of these is a convenient way to avoid responding to climate reality. But in any case, there's nothing we can do about it (except perhaps to purchase renewable energy and certified carbon offsets, reduce consumption, reuse and recycle, fight deforestation and carbon subsidies, promote energy efficiencies, support green political initiatives, advocate for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and support research and development of renewable energy and sustainable technology.)
Democracy in the United States: plutocracy with democratic frosting. A form of government that occurs when laws become market commodities. (See “Citizens United.”)
Elite Lives Matter: an upscale response to the moral claim that “black lives matter” or that “all lives matter.” If you don’t know that only elite lives matter, you obviously haven’t read your Ayn Rand.
Empathy: the illusion that we can imagine the world from the viewpoint of others and share concern for their well-being. (See “Altruism,” “Compassion,” “Bleeding-Heartism.”)
Euphemism: a strategic linguistic device to make reality look prettier than it is. Capitalism is “free enterprise.” Torture is an “enhanced interrogation technique,” or better yet, a technical-sounding “EIT.” Innocent drone victims are “collateral damage,” and bombers and torturers are only terrorists if they’re not us.
General Welfare: an insignificant and undiscussed concept in the first sentence of the U.S. Constitution. (“We the people of the United States, in order to … promote the General Welfare….)
Golden Rule of Politics: Those who have the gold make the rules.
Government Bureaucrat: a civil servant in an administrative position. Corporate administrators are not called bureaucrats, even if they are. They’re called executives, managers, or job creators.
Government Incompetence: the inability of public institutions to do anything well, such as win World War II, build the interstate highway system, explore space, or create the internet.
Hush Money: payments that buy the silence of political and cultural leaders on issues of strategic importance to benefactors. Such funding may include campaign contributions, advertising expenditures, and donations to non-profit organizations such as churches. Silence is a commodity like any other, and its purchase can suppress open discussion of potentially disturbing issues.
Market God: an omniscient and infallible economic divinity whose wisdom is beyond question and whose divine will must not be restrained. (In actuality, the market is a mathematical construct, an abstract machine without a heart, responsive mainly to the wants and needs of those who have the most money to spend.)
Matthew Effect: the principle that advantage tends to beget further advantage, and disadvantage further disadvantage. It’s a law of nature. Nothing can be done about it. If the rich get richer as the poor languish, it is because the Market God or the laws of nature have willed it so. (See “Social Darwinism.”)
The One Percent: the makers, not the takers. The worthy, not the worthless. The creators of jobs. The givers of life. The truly blessed and their progeny, even unto the nth generation of deserving heirs. (Not to be confused with the “gun percent,” the one percent of Americans who belong to the NRA and are holding political hostages.)
Occupy Minds: a general term for advertising, public relations, and tabloid distractions from real life.
Pigmentphobia: fear of skin pigment. (See also “Racism,” “Xenophobia,” “Immigration Panic.”) A rational response to the potential loss of inherited white privilege.
Posterity: a currently non-existent entity for whom no sacrifices need be made in the present. (As economist Robert Heilbroner asked wryly, “What has posterity ever done for us?”) Like "General Welfare," "Posterity" is cleverly hidden in the first sentence of the preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
Rationality: shrewd selfishness. To act on any other basis is said to be “irrational.” (See “Basic Assumptions of Classical Economics.”)
Redistributionist: One who advocates the redistribution of wealth and income downward through the strata of an economic hierarchy. Those who advocate redistribution upward are called “blessed,” for they do the Lord’s work and deserve another round of tax cuts.
Religious Right: a profoundly Christ-like political movement in the United States, well-organized and powerful in American politics. (Religious Left: file not found)
Resistance Is Futile: the Borg’s wise advice to all who would even think of uniting and organizing against plutocracy.
School-to-Prison Pipeline: costly scholarship fund set aside primarily for the civic education of youth of color. (See Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.)
Short-termism: a mode of thinking that sacrifices the long-term well-being of the many for the short-term benefit of the few. (See also “Quarterly Earnings Report” and “CEO Bonus.”)
Stop and Frisk: controversial law enforcement practice undertaken in high street crime neighborhoods, excluding Wall Street.
Successful: Privately wealthy. (See any speech by Mitt Romney)
Tea Party: a well-oiled political faction of the Republican Party whose members imagine they know what George Washington and his colleagues would think if they were alive today.
Voter Integrity Laws: voter suppression laws. (See “Tea Party,” “Pigmentphobia,” “Immigration Panic.”)
Wealth as Commonwealth: a quaint concept left over from American revolutionary times, but long since relegated to the dustbin of history.
Danagram
(with apologies to Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”)
Like most of us, I have an evil twin. While the better angels of my nature tug me toward a life of a high-minded idealism, my evil twin keeps whispering reasons why idealism is futile.
My twin says the idealist me reminds him of Sisyphus, condemned by the Greek gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down again – and again and again -- before it reaches the summit.
My cynical twin has composed the following glossary of terms that every hard-bitten political realist (because reality bites) should know before foolishly putting the shoulder to the boulder. Let me be clear that my better self did not write these entries, and takes issue with all of them.
Altruism: the sentimental fiction that human beings are capable of caring for anyone’s interests but their own. (See also “Basic Assumptions of Classical Economics.”)
Backroomocracy: the governing principle that in nearly every organization, all important decisions are made in back rooms that you’re not in. (See “Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy.”) Just accept this.
Citizens United: plutocrats unleashed. (See “Buying Laws,” "U.S. Supreme Court.”)
Climate Change: global warming and its correlates, in response to which we have only two options – denial and despair. Either we can deny the emerging and accelerating climate crisis (“It’s a hoax,” “Climate scientists don’t know much,” or “Let’s hit the snooze button for now.”) Or, after a brief Oh-My-God moment, we can go directly into paralytic despair. (As Al Gore says, “Despair is not just a tire in the trunk.”) Either of these is a convenient way to avoid responding to climate reality. But in any case, there's nothing we can do about it (except perhaps to purchase renewable energy and certified carbon offsets, reduce consumption, reuse and recycle, fight deforestation and carbon subsidies, promote energy efficiencies, support green political initiatives, advocate for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and support research and development of renewable energy and sustainable technology.)
Democracy in the United States: plutocracy with democratic frosting. A form of government that occurs when laws become market commodities. (See “Citizens United.”)
Elite Lives Matter: an upscale response to the moral claim that “black lives matter” or that “all lives matter.” If you don’t know that only elite lives matter, you obviously haven’t read your Ayn Rand.
Empathy: the illusion that we can imagine the world from the viewpoint of others and share concern for their well-being. (See “Altruism,” “Compassion,” “Bleeding-Heartism.”)
Euphemism: a strategic linguistic device to make reality look prettier than it is. Capitalism is “free enterprise.” Torture is an “enhanced interrogation technique,” or better yet, a technical-sounding “EIT.” Innocent drone victims are “collateral damage,” and bombers and torturers are only terrorists if they’re not us.
General Welfare: an insignificant and undiscussed concept in the first sentence of the U.S. Constitution. (“We the people of the United States, in order to … promote the General Welfare….)
Golden Rule of Politics: Those who have the gold make the rules.
Government Bureaucrat: a civil servant in an administrative position. Corporate administrators are not called bureaucrats, even if they are. They’re called executives, managers, or job creators.
Government Incompetence: the inability of public institutions to do anything well, such as win World War II, build the interstate highway system, explore space, or create the internet.
Hush Money: payments that buy the silence of political and cultural leaders on issues of strategic importance to benefactors. Such funding may include campaign contributions, advertising expenditures, and donations to non-profit organizations such as churches. Silence is a commodity like any other, and its purchase can suppress open discussion of potentially disturbing issues.
Market God: an omniscient and infallible economic divinity whose wisdom is beyond question and whose divine will must not be restrained. (In actuality, the market is a mathematical construct, an abstract machine without a heart, responsive mainly to the wants and needs of those who have the most money to spend.)
Matthew Effect: the principle that advantage tends to beget further advantage, and disadvantage further disadvantage. It’s a law of nature. Nothing can be done about it. If the rich get richer as the poor languish, it is because the Market God or the laws of nature have willed it so. (See “Social Darwinism.”)
The One Percent: the makers, not the takers. The worthy, not the worthless. The creators of jobs. The givers of life. The truly blessed and their progeny, even unto the nth generation of deserving heirs. (Not to be confused with the “gun percent,” the one percent of Americans who belong to the NRA and are holding political hostages.)
Occupy Minds: a general term for advertising, public relations, and tabloid distractions from real life.
Pigmentphobia: fear of skin pigment. (See also “Racism,” “Xenophobia,” “Immigration Panic.”) A rational response to the potential loss of inherited white privilege.
Posterity: a currently non-existent entity for whom no sacrifices need be made in the present. (As economist Robert Heilbroner asked wryly, “What has posterity ever done for us?”) Like "General Welfare," "Posterity" is cleverly hidden in the first sentence of the preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
Rationality: shrewd selfishness. To act on any other basis is said to be “irrational.” (See “Basic Assumptions of Classical Economics.”)
Redistributionist: One who advocates the redistribution of wealth and income downward through the strata of an economic hierarchy. Those who advocate redistribution upward are called “blessed,” for they do the Lord’s work and deserve another round of tax cuts.
Religious Right: a profoundly Christ-like political movement in the United States, well-organized and powerful in American politics. (Religious Left: file not found)
Resistance Is Futile: the Borg’s wise advice to all who would even think of uniting and organizing against plutocracy.
School-to-Prison Pipeline: costly scholarship fund set aside primarily for the civic education of youth of color. (See Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.)
Short-termism: a mode of thinking that sacrifices the long-term well-being of the many for the short-term benefit of the few. (See also “Quarterly Earnings Report” and “CEO Bonus.”)
Stop and Frisk: controversial law enforcement practice undertaken in high street crime neighborhoods, excluding Wall Street.
Successful: Privately wealthy. (See any speech by Mitt Romney)
Tea Party: a well-oiled political faction of the Republican Party whose members imagine they know what George Washington and his colleagues would think if they were alive today.
Voter Integrity Laws: voter suppression laws. (See “Tea Party,” “Pigmentphobia,” “Immigration Panic.”)
Wealth as Commonwealth: a quaint concept left over from American revolutionary times, but long since relegated to the dustbin of history.
Danagram
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