L'OeIl et l'EsprIt

Romney is a man from nowhere. In his post-regional attitude, he shares something with his campaign opponent, Barack Obama, whose background is a similarly jumbled pastiche of regionally nonspecific non-identity. But in the way he bounced around the world as a half-orphaned child, Obama was more like an involuntary passenger in the demographic revolution reshaping the planet than one of its leaders. Romney, on the other hand, is a perfect representative of one side of the ominous cultural divide that will define the next generation, not just here in America but all over the world. Forget about the Southern strategy, blue versus red, swing states and swing voters – all of those political clichés are quaint relics of a less threatening era that is now part of our past, or soon will be. The next conflict defining us all is much more unnerving. That conflict will be between people who live somewhere, and people who live nowhere. It will be between people who consider themselves citizens of actual countries, to which they have patriotic allegiance, and people to whom nations are meaningless, who live in a stateless global archipelago of privilege – a collection of private schools, tax havens and gated residential communities with little or no connection to the outside world.

slaughterhouse90210: “She was at an age, I supposed, at which she had long ceased to care what other people thought. This directness could certainly be taken in the wrong way if it came from a younger person, but there was no such risk in this case.”— Teju Cole, Open City

slaughterhouse90210:

“She was at an age, I supposed, at which she had long ceased to care what other people thought. This directness could certainly be taken in the wrong way if it came from a younger person, but there was no such risk in this case.”
— Teju Cole, Open City

I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable, that’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

—Dolly Parton (via thedollypartonscrapbook)

(via chantaje)