Practical Sainthood Part III

One hundred years in the past, artists declared that art had failed in its task of civilizing humans as evidenced by the senseless mass slaughter on the battlefields of France after August 1914. One hundred years in the future, artists will declare that they are finally successful in their task of civilizing humans as evidenced by the utter lack of senseless mass slaughter on battlefields, despite the heroic efforts of folks who like that sort of thing. Senseless mass slaughterers are left scratching their heads. They desire senseless mass slaughter. They think about senseless mass slaughter. They plan senseless mass slaughter. They drink beer and talk about senseless mass slaughter with their fellow senseless mass slaughterers. But when it comes to actually committing senseless mass slaughter, somehow, it just never seems to come together.

One of the senseless mass slaughterers remembers a philosophy professor of the twentieth century who maintained that anything can be done if it is broken up into small enough steps. There is a ray of hope. The senseless mass slaughterers order another pitcher and get busy with their pencils and papers breaking the job up into smaller steps. Still, nothing ever comes of it. The senseless mass slaughterers get old and fat and sluggish and die blabbering about suicide bombings and thermonuclear attacks they used to plan back in the old days.

But before they die, they tell their grandchildren to find out who is responsible for undermining their efforts. The Jews? The Artists? The Quakers? It is, indeed the artists, but they dare not come out of the closet yet, lest they be declared saints and get martyred. One of the tactics of practical sainthood may to blame someone else when accused of sainthood.

"Me? A saint? Whoa! You got the wrong guy, buddy! You mind if I smoke? Yeah sure I make sculptures that make people feel uncomfortable about committing senseless mass slaughter, but it's all my wife's fault. She is just so queasy about murder, theft, rape, sucking the brains out of fetuses, all that exciting stuff. Me, I'm just in it for the money, you know? Here, have a beer. She hassles me about how my art should be, you know? What can I say? It sells. Hey, look at my collection of old Schwartzenegger dvds. Lots of boom, boom, boom, nome sane?

Blaming the Jews for turning humanity into a race of wimps could lead to a holocaust. Blaming artists or Quakers may do the same. But blaming the women? Too risky? Cultural Terrorist will have to think about this for a long time.