The Wars Response: Thomas Mboto
The wars Response Thomas Mboto
“Its the ordinary men and women who’ve made us what we are. Monstrous, complacent and mad. Remember that. Even if I do sound a moralizing fool, I’ll risk it. After all - I’m pretty old. I could be gone tomorrow! There may not be anybody else who’ll say this to you. Everyone’s so sophisticated these days they can’t stand the hot lights. Eh? well - I saw both wars. And I’m here to tell you the passions involved were as ordinary as me and my sister Bessie fighting over who’s going to cook the dinner. And who won’t! Those people in the park - you - me - everyone - the greatest mistakes we made is was to imagine something magical separated us from Ludendorff and hitchner and Foch. Our Leaders, you see. Well - Churchill and Hitler for that matter! Why such men are just the butcher and the grocer - selling us meat and potatoes across the counter. That’s what binds us together. They appeal to our basest instincts. The lowest common denominator. And then we turn we turn around and call them extraordinary! see what I mean? You have to be carefully careful how you define the extraordinary. Especially nowadays. Robert Ross was no Hitler. That was the problem.”
-pg 17. paragraph 1
I find the quote simply brilliant and morally satisfying. It alludes on the dubious rewards of having ‘extraordinary’ leaders. It also silently defines the type of person Robert Ross was by stating that he “was no Hitler”. From this, I can come to a conclusion that Robert Ross is different from a lot of us that fall into the category of the ‘lowest common denominator’.
Below, I have rewritten the quote to better suit this generation’s extraordinaires
Its the extraordinary men and women who’ve made us what we are. Depressed, complacent and mad consumers. Even if I sound a moralizing fool, I’ll risk it. After all - the world could use more people with my perspective. There
“Its the ordinary men and women who’ve made us what we are. Monstrous, complacent and mad. Remember that. Even if I do sound a moralizing fool, I’ll risk it. After all - I’m pretty old. I could be gone tomorrow! There may not be anybody else who’ll say this to you. Everyone’s so sophisticated these days they can’t stand the hot lights. Eh? well - I saw both wars. And I’m here to tell you the passions involved were as ordinary as me and my sister Bessie fighting over who’s going to cook the dinner. And who won’t! Those people in the park - you - me - everyone - the greatest mistakes we made is was to imagine something magical separated us from Ludendorff and hitchner and Foch. Our Leaders, you see. Well - Churchill and Hitler for that matter! Why such men are just the butcher and the grocer - selling us meat and potatoes across the counter. That’s what binds us together. They appeal to our basest instincts. The lowest common denominator. And then we turn we turn around and call them extraordinary! see what I mean? You have to be carefully careful how you define the extraordinary. Especially nowadays. Robert Ross was no Hitler. That was the problem.”
-pg 17. paragraph 1
I find the quote simply brilliant and morally satisfying. It alludes on the dubious rewards of having ‘extraordinary’ leaders. It also silently defines the type of person Robert Ross was by stating that he “was no Hitler”. From this, I can come to a conclusion that Robert Ross is different from a lot of us that fall into the category of the ‘lowest common denominator’.
Below, I have rewritten the quote to better suit this generation’s extraordinaires
Its the extraordinary men and women who’ve made us what we are. Depressed, complacent and mad consumers. Even if I sound a moralizing fool, I’ll risk it. After all - the world could use more people with my perspective. There