“man has gone secretly mad”

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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 10:28 am

The Age’s Michael Leunig – who previously met God during his anti-Semitic cartoon crisis (“God came in from the paddock and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder”) – now has a personal encounter with weather:

The drought looks at me accusingly – the drought that shrivels egos, affectations and falsehoods – it looks at me knowingly.

The drought! It sees all! In other signs that Leunig is certifiable, he writes:

Democracy, with its implied respect for and dependence upon difference and diversity, now includes mob rule and totalitarianism by stealth in its process through a tawdry, media-based popularity contest spun around superficial appearances, catch phrases, and the modern art of instant, mass deceit. We may well wonder if the true self of modern man has gone secretly mad with fear and exhaustion and is too weak and frightened to emerge. We have fantasy and delusional versions of individuality but do we have the stomach for the real thing?

No realms of human endeavour seem immune from the gently flowing falseness and conformity. Pop stars, politicians, cricket buffs, critics, comedians, actors, academics – craven and crawling – desperately impressing the world with charm, symmetry, toughness, quickness, grooviness, goodness, aloofness, happiness, wit: all the pleasing and dazzling things, the cultivated forms of attractiveness, but somehow moribund.

Best wishes to anyone who has to deal with this chap.

Posted by Tim B. on 01/28/2007 at 11:49 AM
    1. desperately impressing the world with charm, symmetry,

      It may be quantum mechanics.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2007 01 28 at 12:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. He must be the last guy on Gaia to have blackout curtains. Or maybe he just can’t get a date. Whatever it is, he spends too much time by himself.

      Posted by GaryS on 2007 01 28 at 12:02 PM • permalink

 

    1. No realms of human endeavour seem immune from the gently flowing falseness and conformity. Pop stars, politicians, cricket buffs, critics, comedians, actors, academics – craven and crawling – desperately impressing the world with charm, symmetry, toughness, quickness, grooviness, goodness, aloofness, happiness, wit: all the pleasing and dazzling things, the cultivated forms of attractiveness, but somehow moribund.

      You know, the same people who go to antiwar and pro-green demonstrations.

      Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 28 at 12:03 PM • permalink

 

    1. P.S. Maybe with the exception of cricket buffs—although I guess the UK Guardian does have sport writers, who, I’m sure, have to toe the line on the paper’s leftist editorial positions.

      Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 28 at 12:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. Does that include catch phrases that include the word “fork”?

      Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 28 at 12:06 PM • permalink

 

    1. “…the drought that shrivels egos, affectations and falsehoods – it looks at me knowingly. “

      Same thing happened to me.  Then she cooked me breakfast.

      Posted by blogagog on 2007 01 28 at 12:13 PM • permalink

 

    1. We have fantasy and delusional versions of individuality but do we have the stomach for the real thing?

      Probably not, but we do have medications for that kind of thing.  I think Mr. Leunig is desperately in need of same.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 01 28 at 12:13 PM • permalink

 

    1. This glob of wank-speak registered 92 tku’s (Ted Kennedy Units) on Paco’s Patented Incoherentometer. If not mad, Leunig is at least certifiably confused.

      Posted by paco on 2007 01 28 at 12:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. #7 RebeccaH, I’m sure he wouldn’t visit a doctor who isn’t registered in the Great Church of Gaia. And medication must surely be out, because it’s created by giant multinational companies. All he needs is more time out in the meadow with no access to other people.

      Posted by Ash_ on 2007 01 28 at 12:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. “No realms of human endeavour seem immune from the gently flowing falseness and conformity. Pop stars, politicians, cricket buffs, critics, comedians, actors, academics – craven and crawling – desperately impressing the world with charm, symmetry, toughness, quickness, grooviness, goodness, aloofness, happiness, wit: all the pleasing and dazzling things, the cultivated forms of attractiveness, but somehow moribund.”
      Hey, I had no say in Beckham and Posh moving to the US.

      Posted by ushie on 2007 01 28 at 12:37 PM • permalink

 

    1. #5 andycanuck

      Does that include catch phrases that include the word “fork”?

      Yes, I’ll say it: the sad little duckman has reached a fork in the road. I think he’s beginning to grasp the depths of his own irrelevence.

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 28 at 01:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. I am greatly inspired by what this wildly peculiar, dear little foal is telling me as we stand staring at each other in the heat and the drought.

      “Cut the navel-gazing and get me a drink, slideface?”

      Posted by guinsPen on 2007 01 28 at 01:23 PM • permalink

 

    1. But sometimes, like when you find a sicked-up rat liver in the corner of the kitchen on a hot summer’s morning, the shock of disgust is so powerful that the paralysis of revulsion occurs and a searing red rage propels you to the foetid basket where the the geriatric fox terrier is snoring; a stinking turd, just minutes old, sitting squat and by her side.

      From a respectful distance you behold the abomination. This is like no other dog. Its coat is a melange of scab and mange; chaotically speckled and spattered with ancient filth. Your eyes cannot grasp or make sense of such disarray except that all this satanic irregularity lies on a gross, overfed belly, ignoring as you deserve to be ignored, you loony.

      It doesn’t look like a dog, it looks like some freak of nature; some ghastly escapee from a Bosch triptych – perhaps a pot-bellied pig crossed with a djinn. Its satanic stench has obviously evolved over millions of years to ward off humans who can’t tell their arse from their elbow.

      Has nobody ever told you pets must be washed occasionally?  What were you thinking.

      Posted by KK on 2007 01 28 at 01:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. yodelling for the first time in one’s life becomes possible; and indeed seems the best way forward.

      Of course! How could we all have been so blind???

      Yodelling. That’s the answer to … everything. How did we miss it?

      All together now: yodellayeee, yodellayee, yodelayee, yodellayee, OOOOO!

      Aaah. that’s better.

      Posted by SandiM on 2007 01 28 at 01:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. “…mob rule and totalitarianism by stealth in its process through a tawdry, media-based popularity contest spun around superficial appearances, catch phrases, and the modern art of instant, mass deceit.”

      Sounds like a good description of Goreball Warning.

      Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 01 28 at 01:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. Yet strangely, a spiritual vibrance begins to radiate between your senses and the land. A bud-burst within, if you like.

      Well, you should have gone to the bathroom before you hit the road. Didn’t your ma ever tell you that?

      Posted by paco on 2007 01 28 at 02:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. quack…quack…quack.  In more ways than one.

      Speaking of enablers.  Dr. Cullen must have gotten beaucoup blowback since she is featuring a “this is not what I meant” segment at the end of here calamity alert program on the weather channel. Not political, not trying to silence debate yada, yada etc.

      Posted by yojimbo on 2007 01 28 at 02:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. Seems like a little Lexapro might be in order.  He sounds depressed – seriously.  No snark here, just a thought on what this man might need to get out of the slough of despond he seems to be in…

      Posted by Major John on 2007 01 28 at 02:27 PM • permalink

 

    1. The absence of the intelligent, peculiar and irregular sensibility in public life is becoming conspicuous. The unintelligent version, alas, is everywhere to be found.

      Yeah mate, have a go at that duck fucker fella’s latest in the Age

      Posted by dond on 2007 01 28 at 02:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. What are the odds that Leunig really is at least mildly schizophrenic?  Some of his imagery seems similar to some of Philip K. Dick’s described experiences?

      Or he could just be a right asshooe…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 28 at 02:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. “wildly peculiar, dear little foal”

      I think that was in a movie at Sundance.

      Posted by ushie on 2007 01 28 at 03:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. An earlier draft:
      No true democracy or individualism without leftist group-think!
      Bring back the artistic, caring nanny state!
      Troops out of Iraq, and a better class of craven celebrities! (thanks Scrappleface)
      No mob rule or totalitarianism by stealth unless it’s islamic!
      No mass media deceit unless it’s Stern gloom and doom, jerbil warning, Bush derangement or abject surrender!
      I am the true secret self of modern man but am too scared to say anything …oh, wait …hush ma mouth!

      Posted by blogstrop on 2007 01 28 at 04:31 PM • permalink

 

    1. #9 All he needs is more time out in the meadow with no access to other people.

      I’m not so sure.  He keeps seeing God out there, and God says the strangest things to him.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 01 28 at 04:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. #23, doesn’t either Wronwright or Paco have a direct line to God? I’m sure we could work something out…

      Posted by Ash_ on 2007 01 28 at 04:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. Democracy, with its implied respect for and dependence upon difference and diversity

      I wonder what the ancient Greeks would say to that idea? From what little I’ve read on the subject, there was precious little tolerance or respect for diversity and difference in those days.

      Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 28 at 04:56 PM • permalink

 

    1. He’s auditioning for the role of “Bunthorpe” in G&S “Patience”:

      “If you’re anxious for to shine 
in the high aesthetic line 
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs 
of the transcendental terms, 
and plant them ev’rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies 
and discourse in novel phrases 
of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter 
of a transcendental kind.
And ev’ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself 
in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man 
this deep young man must be!”

      “Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion 
must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, 
or a not- too-French French bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank 
as an apostle in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy 
or a lily in your medieval hand.
And ev’ryone will say,
As you walk your flow’ry way,
“If he’s content with a vegetable love 
which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man 
this pure young man must be!”

      Cheers

      Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 01 28 at 05:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. Boy, us sheeple sure are stupid, aren’t we? Good thing we have geniuses like Leunig who can see right through these mass deceptions.

      I really, really hate this “duping of the stupid masses” schtick from these smarter-than-thou elitist leftwanks. Especially when they follow it up with gushing praise of a Cuban potemkin village they saw once.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2007 01 28 at 05:02 PM • permalink

 

    1. Maybe we should map his pantheon so we know who is who and does what?

      Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 28 at 05:20 PM • permalink

 

    1. Democracy, with its implied respect for and dependence upon difference and diversity,

      Actualy, democracy’s only implication is universal sufferage with the secret vote, or is that a requirement of democracy and the implication is a wealthy and independant people.

      I couldn’t bring myself to even read the rest of the mind-numbing paragraph.

      Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 28 at 05:24 PM • permalink

 

    1. Another member of his Pantheopn: The true self of modern man. Apparently this member of the pantheon is deranged

      Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 28 at 05:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. Quack Quack! Mr L

      It’s gonna be so much fun to see Queenslanders as refugees with no homes….

      Blair water buy it now, it’s poo-ee and it’s tasty and it’s good.! Yummy yummy

      h20 h20 h20 h20 h20

      Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 28 at 05:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. :” “: “:” ” ” “: “”“” “”:”” “:  ” “”: “

      “Blair’s drinking poo water” by 1.618

      For Sale $59,788.02

      Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 28 at 05:27 PM • permalink

 

    1. We have fantasy and delusional versions of individuality but do we have the stomach for the real thing?

      This isn’ty a question, it’s a dead parrot statement.

      And I don’t have delusions and do have a stomach for the real thing. So, he must be using the royal WE, or tqalking on behalf of all Platonistas.

      Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 28 at 05:27 PM • permalink

 

    1. I’ll do the bottled version this week!

      Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 28 at 05:28 PM • permalink

 

    1. The water may contain microbes with human proteins.. could cause problems unknown if we drink poo water.

      Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 28 at 05:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. Face it.  Loonyig is just too, too refined for this idiot world.  I suggest he leave as soon as possible.  It’ll only get worse for him.

      The rest of us unrefined (who mostly have to do actual work to make our way) boobs will just have to struggle on without his guidances, I reckon.

      Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 28 at 05:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. # 24 Ash –

      doesn’t either Wronwright or Paco have a direct line to God?

      Well you’re on the right track Ash, but you’re going in the wrong direction.  We have a direct line to Karl Rove.  It’s not quite the same thing.

      (wronwright visibly shivers)

      Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 28 at 06:23 PM • permalink

 

    1. #37: Yeah, Ash. It’s kind of like the difference between above-ground lines and underground cable (instinctively makes the sign of the cross).

      Posted by paco on 2007 01 28 at 07:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. Poor chap – if he took his medication consistently perhaps he wouldn’t be such a morose depressive wanker.

      Posted by bondo on 2007 01 28 at 07:24 PM • permalink

 

    1. Ushie at 21: v. amusing.

      Posted by marc in eugene on 2007 01 28 at 07:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. Leave him alone now Tim.
      He is his own worst enemy, truly pathetic! Ironic that his own bleak, dark and bitter view of the world will ultimately destroy him. He requires no assistance in this respect from anyone.
      Leave him be. I pity him.

      Posted by Brian on 2007 01 28 at 07:41 PM • permalink

 

    1. It’s no secret that Leunig has gone mad.

      Posted by kae on 2007 01 28 at 07:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. Paco, I have long had a mental image of the duck man that I could cope with.
      But your more accurate and vivid image, glob of wank-speak has taken over.
      Now, when I feel that image rising to the surface, protective shields must be immediately raised.

      Posted by Skeeter on 2007 01 28 at 07:57 PM • permalink

 

    1. #1 – very good
      Maybe his duck exhibits its “strangeness” by “quarking” rather than quacking

      Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 28 at 07:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. I think John Doe from “The Usual Suspects” but it better:

      What sick ridiculous puppets we are and what gross little stage we dance on. What fun we have dancing and fucking. Not a care in the world. Not knowing that we are nothing. We are not what was intended.

      Leunig seems less articulate, but more demented.

      Posted by Stone Cold on 2007 01 28 at 08:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. In the spirit of the Ken Bruce ads:

      Modern man has gone mad…
      Modern man has gone mad…
      Modern man has gone mad…
      Modern man has gone mad…
      Modern man has GONE SECRETLY MAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!

      Posted by Stone Cold on 2007 01 28 at 08:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. Leunig is talking about himself.

      He makes a very good living out pretending to be the little man in his cartoons with his little interview voice and his child-like demeanour. But his cartoons attacking Howard, America, Jews and Australia and supporting every left-wing cause have made him a rich man, richer I suspect than many of those who he attacks as greedy and grasping.

      He is the very embodiment of gently flowing falseness and conformity.

      Posted by Contrail on 2007 01 28 at 08:23 PM • permalink

 

    1. “grooviness” – The little known 8th deadly sin.

      Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 28 at 08:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Democracy, with its implied respect for and dependence upon difference and diversity, now includes mob rule and totalitarianism by stealth in its process through a tawdry, media-based popularity contest spun around superficial appearances, catch phrases, and the modern art of instant, mass deceit.

      Democracy has always been mob rule—by definition.  All else follows.  This is why America’s Founders held democracy in such contempt.  Until Roosevelt and his gang of socialists won control, very few people referred to America as a democracy, but rather called our form of government by its proper name, a Republic (a constitutionally limited Republic), with popular elections determining the people’s representative.  But, words have meaning, and the country, and the form our government has taken, has indeed morphed into a democracy where the people think that the mob should rule—as long as it is their particular mob.  This is what socialists like Leunig have long clamored for.  Why is he grousing about it now?

      We have fantasy and delusional versions of individuality but do we have the stomach for the real thing?

      But the socialists have decried the real thing, calling it absolute evil.  They are the ones who have replaced Lockean Individualism with “delusional versions of individuality”, and it is they who never had the stomach for the real thing—from Rousseau on.  Again, this is what socialists like Leunig have long clamored for.  Why is he grousing about it now?

      Posted by saltydog on 2007 01 28 at 08:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. #49 Hear, hear!

      Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 28 at 10:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. #49: I say, Salty, excellent stuff!

      Posted by paco on 2007 01 28 at 11:10 PM • permalink

 

    1. Michael Leunig is fey, childish and needs serious help.  And treatment.

      Posted by ann j on 2007 01 29 at 12:16 AM • permalink

 

    1. ann j – ‘treatment’, in this case, ought not to exclude any of the following:
      24,000 volts through the ‘nads;
      a healthy feed of Ratsak washed down with bleach;
      one exploding bullet through the right eyeball.

      Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 01 29 at 02:15 AM • permalink

 

    1. All this tirade from the Leunatic because the guvverment(1) and people(2) are doing stuff he doesn’t like.
      1. Democracy and 2. Freedom.

      Hey you gotta give communist totalitarian states their dues (NK, CUBA) – if he whined there, at least they would have disposed of him by now.

      I guess having to endure Leunig is the price we pay for democracy and freedom.

      Posted by CanberraNeoCon on 2007 01 29 at 04:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. (NK, CUBA) – if he whined there, at least they would have disposed of him by now.

      ..or made him brother #1

      Posted by Srekwah on 2007 01 29 at 05:23 AM • permalink

 

    1. The problem with a direct line to God is that you have to sell your soul to get one…

      Posted by Vexorg on 2007 01 29 at 06:25 AM • permalink

 

    1. Everything is fake.  Everyone is a fake.  Only someone blessed with my special kind of intellignce and integrity can see this.  The rest of you haven’t my IQ or moral depth.

      Is this commentary or the mewling whine of the adolescent?

      Posted by Inurbanus on 2007 01 29 at 06:52 AM • permalink

 

    1. the true self of modern man has gone secretly mad with fear and exhaustion

      Pure Postmodernist Crap
      If it’s true, how do we know it is, since Leunig is a ‘man’ too?

      ‘Secretly’- a secret from WHOM, exactly?

      This vacuous stuff is Moral Vanity that doesn’t even know it is crap.

      Posted by Barrie on 2007 01 29 at 06:53 AM • permalink

 

    1. Oh look! It’s so beautiful…

      Look down there, in the pond, I can see me!

      And I can see a duck, and a kettle to fetch the water for tea. I can see so many things, the whole wide universe, shimmering all around.

      Look, can’t you see? It’s all here in my world.

      You were there, all of you… entitled and grandiose. More beautiful than butterflies and fairies.

      As winter set in, our reflections froze together. Forever.

      [/Narcissistic Personality Disorder]
      Posted by splice on 2007 01 29 at 11:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. “…desperately impressing the world with charm, symmetry, toughness, quickness, grooviness, goodness, aloofness, happiness, wit: all the pleasing and dazzling things, the cultivated forms of attractiveness…”

      If one has all these good things, why wouldn’t one put them into the world?
      Better than depression, self-obsession, turgidity (of prose and feeling), unrsloved enmities, the killing urge and flat rate hatred for people going about their own affairs.

      WHAT has Leunig allowed himself to become?

      Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 29 at 11:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. oops, that’s “unresolved enmities”.

      Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 29 at 11:56 PM • permalink

 

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