THE CONTEMPORARY ANAMORPHOSIS

It is becoming an uphill battle to make sense of what we see. Not only is there is too much that distracts, there are too many fabrications that divert. 

The Met gala in New York was the perfect example of yet another reality turning topsy-turvy. The occasion was traditionally a pathetic salute to creative fashion. It has become Mardi Gras...

We tried to come to terms with the sequence of wars and conflicts that obeyed to some form of perverse fatality.   In the end, therapy became doable, if mostly imperfect and always unpleasant.

Nowadays one can no longer look at a perversely coherent or serial set of events. Given the multiplication of simultaneous outbreaks and frantic convulsions everywhere, one ends up looking at an anamorphosis, which is becoming too hard to decipher. 

The combined assault of flashpoints: Taiwan, Israel;  rogue state behavior: North Korea, Russia, Bielorussia, Nicaragua;  stress thresholds: Sudan, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, Tchad, the Democratic Republic of Congo; and war: Ukraine, is creating a permanent motion disorder. Dr. Kissinger should follow up his World Order with World Chaos.

The enlightened minds feel rejected in this new form of moral derision on the back of regulated conduct and the rule of law. Hutchinson's war of civilizations is no longer a thesis, it has become an assertion. The situation is made even more murky due to the role played by the mercenaries for hire, like the Wagner group, who add a further complication. The accepted rules of strategy and warfare died some time ago. The West, mostly the USA, contributed, unfortunately so, to creating ambiguities that morphed into former objectional incursions.

The hard-core breakdown of rules of engagement should not distract from the added new wave of murky happenings: fake news, weak institutions, shaky economies and conspiracy-led disinformation, that are destabilizing trust.

There is no better illustration of the absurd in the West than the upcoming mothballed production wherein a King dressed up in medieval attire will be crowned in some ridiculous religious pageant. When undisputed priorities give way to dubious entertainment, there is patent dysfunction.

Meanwhile, next door, Ukraine is burning!