Word: righteouseness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That is the theory underlying two recent Nixon satires. I mile de Antonio's video production Milhouse and An Evening with Richard Nixon, a theater piece by Gore Vidal. These "comedies" do more than avoid disentangling the real Nixon from his popular caricature--the self-repressed, ambitious, and self-righteous liar. They construct a semi-comic figure entirely from Nixon's own words. In this sense, they are black comedy. Our laughter barely hides our disgust. It is the President of the United States, not an impersonator, who seems ludicrous. Our sense of his ineptitude only underscores our disbelief...
Like the other works, Roth's story evokes laughter which is sadistic, even self-righteous, but he helps us to understand the roots of liberal hatred for the image of Nixon. Trick E. Dixon epitomizes the most evil, calculating and self-serving ambition. He is totally amoral. When he is assassinated, thousands pour into Washington, each hoping to be arrested as the one who accomplished the feat...
...politics of righteous indignation are only slightly less frightening than two of their gruesome children, the Russian Revolution and the Nazi state. Another victory for President Nixon, whatever his faults, will be preferable...
...failure of American liberalism today to form a philosophy broad enough to encompass the urban working class as well as the suburban elite. For the present, liberalism deals only with platitudes, not the gut concerns of people. And as such, it is doomed to a never-ending series of righteous, but inevitable, defeats...
...After the riots, nothing was done to prevent reprisals. Inmates were made to run naked through gauntlets of enraged guards, who had "anesthetized their humanity and become righteous vigilantes." Several days after the riot's end, doctors saw evidence of fresh beatings. The commission accused state officials of allowing rumors to spread -and of unconscionable delay in denying the false report that one hostage had been castrated and that others had their throats fatally slashed...