The Cultural War to Come

Like everybody these days I’m a student of popular culture. If you have paid attention at all over the past several years you would know that the apocalyptic tempest brewing on the horizon of modern society has nothing to do with the differences between Christianity and Islam, east and west, American hegemony and third world insurgency. No, if popular movies have taught us anything it is that the coming firestorm will pit the slobs against the snobs.

It is time to choose sides, America. This is a war that will pit brother against brother, father against son, mother against daughter, father and sons against great-grandmother (Not much of a match-up there. Granny is definitely getting her assed kicked.), caddies against country club members, rich versus poor, stuffed-shirt professors against partying students with failing grades, semi-retarded nuclear power plant employees versus decadent owners, and this is just TV characters; when Christian and Muslim slobs go up against their snob counterparts the shit will really hit the geopolitical fan.

Since the dawn of time slobs have been stronger and have outnumbered snobs. Neanderthals were pretty much ruled by slobs but then a snob Neanderthal used a stick sharpened with a stone tool to poke out the eye of the dominant Neanderthal slob. Snobs went on to build nuclear weapons which proved more than a match for slobs armed with tire irons and broken beer bottles.

George Bush and Osama bin Laden have more in common than they have differences. Although they both came from wealthy families their personal styles run towards the slob. Osama lives in a cave and reportedly has a serious flea problem. What could be more slob than that? Bush, a former frat boy, threw up on the front seat of Dick Cheney’s Porsche at a White House fund-raising party. Although Bush and Osama are sworn enemies, put them both at a fancy dinner party and the only fighting they will do is over who gets to dump the terrine of scalding soup on the wealthy dowager’s head.

I, myself, feel like someone living on the Mason-Dixon Line at the start of the Civil War--I will have a hard time picking a side. Although I spent the entire past weekend locked up in my apartment trying to learn two Chopin nocturnes on the piano (very snob), all I ate were nachos and hotdogs (very slob). I think that I will wait to see which side is going to win and then jump in on their side at the very end to the conflict. I will throw the last pie into the face of the symphony conductor which will be the coup de grace in the slob/snob death match—unless the snobs up the ante by using nukes in which case I will take off my Hawaiian shirt to reveal the tuxedo underneath.

ANOTHER ESSAY IMPROVED BY COMMENTS FROM READERS:


I understand it's your job to be funny, but there really is a coming cultural war. It will be between those who are dumb enough to believe a sock stuffed in a flight suit makes the man, and those who laugh out loud at the sight.


kevin m.