In Impromptus today, I talk about Michael Walsh’s new book: The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West. This book provoked a thousand thoughts in me. I promise that I’ll give only a fraction of them, in my two-part series. (I wrap up tomorrow.)
One of the things I note — and that Michael notes — is that there are only a few stories. I mean, a few stories come up, again and again, over the millennia. Let me quote from my column:
I was watching the new Star Wars. And I thought, “There’s the Bible. There’s King Arthur. There’s Wagner.” You know, these same themes — even actions, even plot twists — coming at us again and again.
They’re good.
After I wrote my column, I thought of another one — Thermopylae. Doesn’t someone in the movie say (of his weapon), “Come and take it”? Molon labe, were the Greek words, according to Herodotus. That’s what the Spartans said to the Persians. It comes up again in the American Revolution. And in the Texas Revolution.
And, unless I’m mistaken, in Star Wars.
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, used it the other day, in response to President Obama’s latest overture — or is it a grab? — on guns: “Come and take it.”
I have also heard people say, over the years, that there are only about three jokes, really. I’ll let Rob Long speak to that, sometime, if he wishes.