Glennocidal Tendencies: American Psycho Version
Is Patrick Bateman alive and well and living in Colorado? Maybe. If so, he’s changed his name to Stephen Green and he’s no longer content with petty things, like allowing his envy of friends’ superior business cards drive him to a murderous rage, or stabbing the random homeless person, oh no. He’s moved on to bigger, broader ambitions — although apparently, the envy smolders on.
A conversation such as this one must have taken place at his trust-fundicated chateau on the slopes of Mount Taxmenot:
Green: Muffin, I want to buy a good pro-genocide argument, like Glenn Reynolds’s. I’m tired of that louche bastard having all the good wingnut toys.
The Wife: But honey, you already have the stab-in-the-back argument, and it’s just as slick as Goldstein’s — “You’re either with Dear Leader or against Him.” What about the “ideological war” thing? The dissent-is-treason line that you can never say outright, but that’s the gist of it…?
Green: But that’s just it: Every wingnut has that argument. Yes, mine is especially nice, with dealership-optional fig leaves of plausible deniability, but so is Goldstein’s. I want something with more power — something top-of-the-line.
The Wife: *Sigh* Well, can you get it at Traitor Joe’s?
Green: No, no. Only at Slaughtery Barn.
The Wife: Okay, honey. I’ll pick one up tomorrow. Should I use the trust account?
Green: Of course. It’s just better that way.
Wifey must have brought it home on the 4th., because by April 5th., Green was already tinkering with it, but could not quite make it work. A lifetime of avoiding both manual labor and critical thinking had rendered him all thumby. With Kevin Drum in his sights, the argument misfired. It came out all wrong. He wanted a righteous burst of “Genocide: Fuck yeah!” but all that issued forth was this old, dribbly codicil that Paul Wolfowitz had donated to the wingnutosphere years ago, the “You Wish Saddam Were Still In Charge” argument:
If the Iraqis fail in their quest for modernity and justice, it won’t be because the Coalition didn’t stay and help. Besides, building a real nation from the oppressed scraps of three is hard work. It’s obvious that Drum wishes we hadn’t, and Iraq won’t have a chance if we Drum out of the country. If I read him right, Drum prefers the Good Old Days when Saddam was killing at least as many Iraqis as the insurgency is, and UN sanctions were killing even more. Drum would prefer that Iraq remain under Saddam’s boot, then [sic] to even allow them a chance at freedom. I’m proud to say we took a different course.
Yeah, that’s good. Intensely wingnutty, even. But not what Green was hoping for. It has to be pro-genocide, yet subtly so. It has to soar and dive like Instapundit’s. That’s the ticket. Green abandons the workshop for a late-afternoon cocktail resolving to try again later.
It’s April 6th now. Green re-reads the directions on the box — a difficult task as Green is not fluent in German and must consult an appropriate dictionary. He struggles through it again. Wait, he’d missed this: “First, you must find an appropriate bullshit historical analogy, preferably by Victor Davis Hanson, then piggyback it with your genocidal recommendation. The key is implication. Never be explicit, but at the same time, your point must be unmistakable.” Well, that makes sense! You can’t bring up genocide out of the blue, and be plain about your meaning, these days — too many lefties will bust ya! Green is exhilarated, scans the wingnut rags for an apposite Hanson screed. Can’t find anything… ooh wait, Dan Simmons and his ‘Century War’. It’s not Hanson, but it might as well be:
Athens failed in Syracuse – and doomed their democracy – not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they weren’t ruthless enough. They had grown soft since their slaughter of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, the enslavement of every woman and girl there. The democratic Athenians, in regards to Syracuse, thought that once engaged they could win without absolute commitment to winning, claim victory without being as ruthless and merciless as their Spartan and Syracusan enemies. The Athenians, once defeat loomed, turned against their own generals and political leaders – and their official soothsayers. If General Nicias or Demosthenes had survived their captivity and returned home, the people who sent them off with parades and strewn flower petals in their path would have ripped them limb from limb. They blamed their own leaders like a sun-maddened dog ripping and chewing at its own belly.
Bingo! Now Green can say the following and get away with it, veneering the essential sentiment as he does with a false sort of reluctance:
But after 9/11, it became our duty to teach the barbarians that they must cry uncle – that we are willing to do whatever it takes to defend Western Civilization.
We touched on this issue yesterday, after Kevin Drum wondered exactly what “whatever it takes� really means. I said then, and still believe today, that “‘Whatever it takes’ is what we’re trying to avoid.� What Simmons has reminded all of us is that just because we’re trying to avoid something, doesn’t make it avoidable.
Ahh, as good as Reynolds — even better! We want to avoid ruthlessness, but they won’t let us! They’re forcing us to kill them all!
Perfectly framed.
The fictional Patrick Bateman was a farce, a laff-riot, his specific pathologies too over the top even for a parody; the real life Patrick Bateman, horrible yuppie scumbag Stephen Green, however, is pathological in a more subtle, more general sense. Green is therefore far more terrifying.
Bret Easton Ellis’s Patrick Bateman was a serial killer who at least had the decency to do his own killing; Stephen Green’s re-creation of himself as Patrick Bateman prefers the prospect of the U.S. Army waging genocide in the Middle East for his entertainment and ideological satisfaction — and is prepared to blame the victims the whole while.
As a work of art, Ellis’s Bateman is superior, as trite and overdone as he is. His is a cautionary tale for others against choosing a life devoted to brute selfishness and superficiality. On the other hand, the art-as-life Bateman, Vodkapundit, merely embodies a rote and obvious way in which spoiled, overprivileged people can have values inimical to democracy and American life in general, and can suck as citizens and human beings. It is a lesson that many have had occasion to appreciate, but few are ever in a position to apply. It is a lesson for those who view history through tanning-bed goggles.
And at least Ellis’s Bateman offered music reviews not quite so atrocious as those in the Rolling Stone of the day. All Green’s Bateman offers is some techie babble, the echt yuppie taste in consumer goods that masquerades as connoisseurship, and Glennocidal Tendencies.
I just wish the bastard would stop besmirching the good name of vodka.
Yeah! Doesn’t he realize that vodka is of Russkie origins?!? Commie!
You know, I while back I had cancer, but it was in remission.
I didn’t really need surgery, because the second opinion I got gave me a good prognosis; after a few years, with therapy, I would have been fine.
But I had the surgery anyway, because my doctor convinced me it was necessary. And I was glad to be rid of the cancer.
But something went wrong, and during the surgery I also picked up HIV, and before I knew it, it turned into full-blown AIDS.
So I went to my doctor and said ‘what do I do now, I have AIDS?’
And he said ‘will you stop complaining about the AIDS? What do you want to do, go back to how it was when you had cancer?’
I didn’t really know how to answer that…
Jesus- Green is the kind of guy men in my family have been fighting in wars for for the last eighty years. The causes may or may not be right, but their logic for fighting never is.
Asshat; Idiot, yuppie piece of shit-nik asshat.
Okay, now Retardo … credit where credit is due!
(I’m sure Green-Bateman just trickled into your subconscious; besides it is not too great a leap.)
End cobagging transmission.
Green: But that’s just it: Every wingnut has that argument. Yes, mine is especially nice, with dealership-optional figleaves of plausible deniability, but so is Goldstein’s. I want something with more power — something top-of-the-line.
The Wife: *Sigh* Well, can you get it at Trader Joe’s?
Green: No, no. Only at Fascist Depot.
Could you have meant “Traitor Joe’s”?
Could you have meant “Traitor Joe’s”?
I’m doing a light edit on the fly (Retardo has probably gone agrarian this morning), and yes, I do believe it’s actually Traitor Joe’s that Green was referring to…
Athens failed in Syracuse…not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they weren’t ruthless enough.
Aside from the wickedness of endorsing mass murder, anyone who thinks that this is the moral of Thucydides Bk V is an imbecile.
bzzt wrong, assparrot! Reference to the Ellis book was made in the Green entry of the original wingnut all-stars post!
now i’m late for work.
Jesus- Green is the kind of guy men in my family have been fighting in wars for for the last eighty years
Except that Green is the kind of guy who avoids fighting in wars.
Incidentally, if I read Green right, he prefers that Kim and his totalitarian regime remain in power in North Korea.
Retardo Montalban? You can do better than that. You deserve better than that!
Green’s the subject of a podcast by Ed Driscoll.
It’s fun stuff: http://www.eddriscoll.com/podcasts/VodkaPodcast_4-6-06.mp3
It’s worth reading the Dan Simmons story. It’s on-line at his web site. As science fiction, it’s so-so, but as an insight into wingnut paranoia, it’s very insightful. The essence: If we don’t crack down on the muslim world very soon, our ancestors will all end up living as slaves in a muslim theocracy. The huge gap in the story is that he doesn’t describe in any way exactly how these evil people managed to overthrow western civilization. All he does is say that we didn’t fight hard enough.
In their wingnut world, it’s “them or us”. If we don’t destroy the muslim world, they will destroy us. If you think about historical situations in which people were encouraged to think that way… well, I can’t think of one that ended well.
Aha! Please accept my humble apologies, R. It must have been my subconscious that got seeped into, instead.
Wait, I don’t get it: there’s something wrong with taking a chainsaw to Chloe Sevigny?
PS: Thanks for pointing that out, even if it does turn Dan Simmons, of whose Hyperion Cantos I am a huge fan, into an monumental disappointment to me. So sad.
That is, thanks Diane. 😉
Reading between the lines, apparently the Muslamics will take over because (a) they blow up a lot of buildings and landmarks — especially, for some reason, in Dallas; and (b) America doesn’t kill them all.
Part of the hypothesis also seems to be that if we don’t give up our civil liberties, then we will lose our civil liberties. Interesting logic there.
Aside from the wickedness of endorsing mass murder, anyone who thinks that this is the moral of Thucydides Bk V is an imbecile.
Jimmy, I had the exact same thought. The most memorable part of the book to me was the line, “And the whole city wept, imagining that the same atrocites they had committed against the Melosians would now be visited upon them.” (Pardon the translation–it’s been too long since I took Greek.) What a perfect expression of people realizing too late the kind of consequences their previous actions have.
(For those who don’t know it: The History of the Pelopenesian War is a tradegy of a great democratic power that forgot what made it great in the first place: the power-hungry arrogance of the Athenian leaders and the jingoistic exceptionalism of the Athenian people led them to disregard the rules of “civilized” warfare, attack and demand tribute from weaker cities, betray traditional alliances, rob the common treasuries, and even mock the gods themselves. [Hm…why does that sound familiar?]
Eventually, the other powerful city-states understand the extent of the Athenian threat and ally against her. By this time, the Athenians have overextended their army in their imperial adventure and left the home city vulnerable. And then we get the passage I paraphrased above.
I think it’s also telling that Thucydides was a military commander during this time, and he had a front row seat as his own city commited the self-destructive sins of hubris and theros [~greed]. I think he would disgusted by Green’s interpretation of his work.)
that prick green has stolen my last name. i want it back.
and look, to be fair, genocide is often overlooked as a solution to a problem. i’m an advocate of “bunker busting” genocide myself. sometimes the bad guys dig themselves in really deep like roaches, and only the limited genodice option can smoke them out of their holes. or haven’t you read Victor Horace Hanson?
Its one thing to lose your civil liberties to good white folk, but do you really want to lose your civil liberties to one of /them/?
God that Dan Simmons can write. Here’s the exciting ending of his “we’re not ruthless enough” piece:
It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the the Time Traveler’s last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.
Three words.
Sincerely,
Dan Simmons
Now I don’t know about you, but “Sincerely, Dan Simmons” aren’t three words that would shake me to the core of my core or even keep me from a good nap. But I’ve never really understood literature so maybe it’s me.
Except that Green is the kind of guy who avoids fighting in wars.
Exactly- they (the rich) do the calling, we (the poor and middle classes) do the brawling. Not fight under (not that those of Green’s species has the backbone to be a combat officer or NCO anyway) or fight on the behalf of (which would imply they were incapbable), but no, fight for. That’s the right combination of words.
I’ll just echo the comments by Jimmy and Dorothy, and – to be fair, for a change – add that I really don’t think that Hanson, who, although nuttier than a shitload of nuts, is actually a fairly decent ancient military historian, could write anything as mindbogglingly stupid as that Simmons quote.
And on the horrors of andrapodismos (the special Hellenic brand of genocide) nothing beats Euripides’ The Trojan Women, written and produced in Athens immediately after their massacre on Melos. Stuff to make grown men cry, and give Green a hard on.
My god, that piece by dan simmons really does read like an opium dream. Its a deliberate and hideously incoherent and arch rewriting of Jules Verne, Dickens, and every anti muslim screed ever written.
What are the three words? Porofatto’s version makes logical sense but surely we have to think simmons means something else. I’m not kidding, I want to know and I can’t plumb the depths of simmons’ plagiaristic fantasy any deeper to try to guess. Someone else risk mental life and limb and tell me?
aimai
Delurking to offer hope to my fellow Dan Simmons fans who are dismayed by his ridiculous story advocating genocide.
There is quite a flurry of activity on his website over the possibility that the story is an April Fools Day joke, and that is what the “three words” he refers to obliquely at the end of his story are, in fact, “April Fools Day.”
Given that the story was posted on April Fools Day, I’m hope Simmons meant it as a joke, although I’ll admit it isn’t very funny. Although the speed by which the pro-genocide right has picked up on it is funny in a disturbing way.
Simmons’ next book: The Terror
Wouldn’t “april fools” (the customary post joke taunt) be just two words?
Wait, I don’t get it: there’s something wrong with taking a chainsaw to Chloe Sevigny?
Not if you nail that insufferable little weasel Vincent Gallo while you’re at it.
I love Simmon’s books, but if this piece of shit is for real, I can only respond with three haunting words of my own: “Fuck you, Dan.”
It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the the Time Traveler’s last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.
Three words.
“Swank was right.”
Good God. I don’t have an idiotic political litmus test for every artist whose work I’ve admired, but I can’t spin this as anything other than “It’s endorsing your own extinction to be more merciful towards your enemies than they intend to be with you, and since the preponderance of Muslims intend nothing less than to destroy or enslave us, well. . .” Only Simmons, hiding behind the shade of Thucydides and Ken Grimwood, can’t be bothered to let us know towards what end this line of thinking inevitably should take us; the sweet, kindly woman in my office who remarked on 09/12 that we should just “nuke them all,” children included–since the children would just grow up to be terrorists themselves–was, in her own way, being a lot more honest. If Simmons had said outright that in the interest of survival we should be prepared to deal with Islam the way the Romans dealth with Carthage and turn the Middle East and Indonesia into green glass, and jettison those pesky civil liberties ACLU liberals are so obsessed with, I’d still have thought he’d gone insane, but I’d have more respect for him.
I can hardly think of five novels that started out a career more brilliantly than Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, the Hyperion Cantos, and Phases of Gravity, but since then I’ve found Simmons’ work to be increasingly uneven and commercially made-to-order. Now, maybe, I know why.
Three words.
“Lileks has more.”
Why, I’ve just figured it out, both the three little words and who the mysterious visitor is! The visitor: The Ole Perfesser. The words: “Disturbing if true.” Heh. Indeed.
“Hat tip: Israpundit.”
“Hinderaker, Johnson, Mirengoff”?
“Disturbing, if true.”
“President for life.”
“President Scott Stapp.”
Goshdarnit, should have read through the last few comments more carefully before I posted that.
You’ll rue the day you crossed me, Pantload!
“Gnat wears hijab.”
“Bush was right”
“No more knockwurst.”
“Cat Stevens comeback.”
“Watch this drive”
I ♥ Malkin
**crickets**chirping**
“Cubs win Series.”
PS @ Michael Hall: I found Carrion Comfort to be a somewhat jerky and uneven, but ultimately entertaining read — definitely a novice entree into his career. As though he couldn’t decide if he wanted to settle for being a smarter, sharper Stephen King, or something even better. But I agree with you about the rest.
“Wasn’t the beginning on September 11, 2001?” I managed through numb lips.
The one-eyed scarred man shook his head. “Historians in my time know that it began on June 5, 1968,” he said. “But it hasn’t really begun for you yet. For any of you.”
I thought – What on earth happened on the fifth of June, 1968? I’m old enough to remember. I was in college then. Working that summer and . . . Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. “Now on to Chicago and the nomination!” Sirhan Sirhan. Was the Time Traveler trying to give me some kind of half-assed Oliver-Stone-JFK-movie garbled up conspiracy theory?
“What . . .” I began.
And then I realized. That was the date of my first hit of acid.
“Yibble yibble” said the purple-faced stranger in a shower of fractal op-art Max Fleischer swimmingly zonk waffle into of hat borkle eep.
“Pull my finger”
My guess for those horrible 3 words:
“Bush nuked Iran”
“our Vorogn Overlords”
Saved…Bundle…CarInsurance…
I think he was going for “Allah Al-Akbar”.
“But sadly no!”
Christ that’s fucking embarrassing.
“Gary Ruppert, flaregun.”
teh l4m3,
You may be right. My opinion on Carrion Comfort may be unduly influenced by my owning a publisher’s first edition of the novel, hand-illustrated and signed by Simmons to me personally (I’ve now met the man twice). As you say, it’s ferociously entertaining at least, and IMHO unquestionably superior to most of King’s work.
Song of Kali was one of the most frightening things I’ve ever read–I remember sitting in a bath that slowly grew cold as I made my way through the last harrowing pages. And the Hyperion novels were just brilliant–some of the best hard SF that had been written in decades. (The Endymion sequels, which I had so looked forward to, turned out mostly to be a huge letdown. *Sigh*)
I guess it’s ironic that I share Simmons’ admiration for Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” in which the renegade Green Beret Colonel Kurtz laments that America doesn’t have the fortitude to act with the ruthlessness of its enemies. If Simmons took that to be the “message” of the film he wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake, but he’d be better off taking heed of the implied message of new remake of “Battlestar Galactica”: it’s not just enough to survive–one must be worthy of survival.
“Doughy Pantload Enlists!”
“General Seyed Reza Pardis,â€? intoned the Time Traveler. “Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three…
Who’s that, the guy on Lost? I only ordered two shishkebab, damnit.
three words… hmmm…
“Party on, dudes”?
“Gracie is pregnant”?
As a long-time Simmons fan, I can only hope that the speculation above is right, and that it was a joke. If he’s serious, he’s mainlining his lifetime supply of the brown acid.
I found Simmon’s mystery books about that Darwin guy to be UNREADABLE TRYPE. They seem packed with every bad net libertarian stereotype and faux over-the-top testosterone episode that one can imagine. Not to mention that Simmons uses urban legends as set pieces without keeping his tounge in cheek. This all leads me to think he’s got some scary tendencies.
He also should not assume that his readers are so amused by recycled internet humor that they need to read a whole book of it.
‘Summer of Night’ remains one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read, but Simmons seems to be another guy for whom 9/11 was an excuse to let loose his inner Kurtz.
Anybody read Ilium and Olympos? The first one was actually really good, held lots of promise. The sequel was an incredible let-down, devolving into acid-trip quasi-mysticism and “imagination creates the universe” nonsense. As a measure of how little I thought of it, within a day of finishing Olympus I could not, for the life of me (and still cannot today, only a couple of months later) remember how it ended.
I enjoyed Carrion Comfort and reread it every five or six years. (I’m halfway through a reread now, though I’ve been distracted by other.) I was a big fan of Hyperion and hated the sequels. Simmons’ work has been nothing if not inconsistent. And if he lets his membership in the Anti-Muslim Genocide Brigades affect his writing any more, I may never read him again.
I am going with the theory that it was an April Fools joke, for now.
and can I say how disappointed I am that the 3 Bulls weren’t over here to put in their guess for the “three words”?
Eat it cobags!
“Ringo sings lead.”
“Next on Geraldo.”
“Borges was here.”
“President Vincent Gallo.”
“Murdoch buys Internet.”
“Bush declared king.”
“You marry Coulter.”
“Eat it cobagz.”
Ah, shit. Just saw Kathleen’s fromage to 3Bulls. Guess it’s just my day for Domeneching everything in sight.
Also:
“Drum comedy tour.”
“Viva el Mexico!”
“Strength Through Joy”
(to be followed with “Godwin was Here”.)
“Simmons Arrested: Crack.”
Anonymous, DA, Dan S, Max R, Grotesqueticle: but can we all say that this new intel on Simmons will not taint our enjoyment of the works he did not pull out of his ass?
I hope so… I really, rally liked Hyperion (esp. the Sol & Rachel Weintraub subplot), and Fall of Hyperion). I’d hate to think of that abomination upthread every time I cracked open something he’d written…
really rally. Gah. Thank goodness no one will read this…
teh, I don’t know how much you go in for Wagner, but maybe the same dynamic is at work in terms of enjoying the art but not the man.
And yeah, Jillian has already invoked Godwin (on herself, nice touch!) but you know what? People who plead for more “ruthlessness” against civilian populations deserve the comparison.
If we don’t crack down on the muslim world very soon, our ancestors will all end up living as slaves in a muslim theocracy.
Whoa. That’s some crazy time travel action there if it’s our ancestors and not our descendants he’s worried about.
My Godwining myself was sort of tongue in cheek, DA – because I agree with you. Unfortunately, it would appear that Godwin’s law is not immuutable anymore.
But I can’t help but wonder if Simmons has ever met John Titor?
Never mind his wingnuttery. Why isn’t this asshat at his local recruiting station if he’s so passionate about–AHEM–defending Western civilization?
I’m late to this party, but here goes:
But after 9/11, it became our duty to teach the barbarians that they must cry uncle – that we are willing to do whatever it takes to defend Western Civilization. Christy, take off your robe.
We touched on this issue yesterday, after Kevin Drum wondered exactly what “whatever it takesâ€? really means. I said then, and still believe today, that “‘Whatever it takes’ is what we’re trying to avoid.â€? Sabrina, remove your dress. What Simmons has reminded all of us is that just because we’re trying to avoid something, doesn’t make it avoidable. Sabrina, why don’t you, uh, dance a little.
Losing Iraq, by whatever definition, doesn’t just mean picking up our marbles and going home. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. The stakes are much higher than one medium size country, or even an oil-soaked region. With that in mind, read the Time Traveler’s other warning. Sabrina, don’t just stare at it, eat it.
Never mind his wingnuttery. Why isn’t this asshat at his local recruiting station if he’s so passionate about–AHEM–defending Western civilization?
That reminds me – we forgot one:
“Operation Yellow Elephant”.
“Jenna swears sobriety”
“Margo! Boxcar! Saturn!”
Calling Tigrismus!
I’m beginning to think people might want resumes and essays that read as though written by the bastard child of ELIZA and Google translate, so who am I to judge?