Stooges

by digby

In the course of a typically enjoyable email exchange with my pal Jonathan Schwartz about whether or not sociopaths inevitably inhabit the corridors of power he sent me this extremely interesting post of his from a while back on the occasion of the death of Margaret Hassan the famous aid worker who was kidnapped and killed by some horrible assholes in Iraq. It was an awful thing and brought Jonathan to muse on the sociopathic tendencies among us and to quote what he calls the THE GREATEST DESCRIPTION OF POLITICS EVER WRITTEN:

From High Weirdness by Mail by Rev. Ivan Stang:

There are three kinds of people — I call them Larrys, Curlys, and Moes. The Larrys don’t even know that there are three types; if they’re told, it’s an abstraction, because they cannot imagine anything beyond Larry-ness. The Curlys know about it, and recognize the pecking order, but find ways of living with it cheerfully…for they are the imaginative, creative ones. The Moes not only know about it, but exploit and perpetuate it. The naive, pleasant believers of all kinds are Larrys — ineffectual, well-meaning do-gooders destined always to be victims, often without once guessing their status. Like sheep, they don’t want to hear the unpleasant legends about “the slaughterhouse”; they trust the strange two-legged beings who feed them. The artists, unsung scientific geniuses, political writers, and earnest disciples of the stranger cults are Curlys — engaging, original, accident-prone but full of life, intuitively aware of the Moe forces plotting against them and trying to fight back. They can never defeat the Moes, however, without BECOMING Moes, which is impossible for a true Curly. The Moes, then, are the fanatics, the ranters, the cult gurus, the Uri Gellers AND the Debunkers; they are the Resistance Leaders and the Ruling Class Bankers. They hate each other, but only because they want to control ALL the Larrys and Curlys themselves. They don’t actually enjoy their dominance; it’s simply part of their nature. Nor are they less foolish for the fact that they make the decisions. They suffer a chronic paranoia that is unknown to their less demanding underlings. Larrys and Curlys die in wars started by rival Moes — the Larrys willingly, the Curlys with great regret. Concepts like “Hell” and “Sin” were invented by Moes to keep Larrys in line; the Larrys in turn, being far more numerous, exert social pressures on the Curly minority to also obey…mainly so the Larrys won’t feel like suckers. The Moes also invent myths, like that of the “Grouchos, Harpos, Chicos, and Zeppos,” to throw the more rebellious Curlys off their trail and keep them unsure of the real situations. [When the Curly’s finally die of overwork, the Moes find that they cannot live in an all-Larry world; they select special Larry’s and vainly try to mold them into False Curlys…but it isn’t the same.] I am a Moe, though not a particularly powerful one; that is why I know these things, and it is also why I dare to tell you — for most of you will think it’s just a funny joke. A few will know it is the truth, but will fight far harder against my Moe enemies than you will against me, a relatively harmless Moe. My fellow Moes — enemies and uneasy SubGenius allies alike — will know what I’m REALLY saying, and chuckle in appreciation while plotting my downfall. In vain. ALL in VAIN, boy.

Jonathan thinks that Larrys are sleeping Curlys, which is kind of nice. I’m quite sure that among a certain sub-set of highly superior holier-than-thou commentators it’s an article of faith that all Curlys are just slightly more fashionable Larrys.

But, on some level, I think most people probably think they are Moes . In America at least, they would be the real “winners.”

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