Cicero was a wise human being who wrote that a man with a garden and a library has all he needs. He also said that only a man without a brain tweets. (Well, he would have said it, were he around today.) The Oxford philosopher John Gray, a man I used to get drunk with until he gave up the sauce, insists that the pursuit of distraction has now been embraced as the meaning of life. Gray knows what he’s talking about. In his latest book, The Silence of Animals, he portrays man as a desperate creature who twists and turns to avoid acknowledging that he, too, is an animal. The ancient Greek philosopher Taki calls people who tweet and spend their time on Facebook the closest thing to subhumans. Cicero, John Gray, Taki—three great thinkers known for their silences and, I can speak only for the latter, not owning a mobile.
Yes, dear Chronicles readers, one can no longer read a news report online without noticing one hundred bilious and moronic comments following it. Everyone today has become a commentator, parading his or her idiotic and illiterate musings for the world to see. It seems that shame is a word no longer understood by the great unwashed—and even by some who shower daily. A British reporter recently broadcast his vasectomy over the web. What a pity his father didn’t have one before that particular slob came on board.
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