Post-Modern Blog Name

The Tralfmadorians of Slaughterhouse Five hold a rather... alien view on death. That is to say, their general acceptance of it with their saying “so it goes” is rather unsettling to our very necrophobic society. In nearly every culture on Earth, we have belief systems that use life after death as a comfort. We reject the concept of our singular mortality. We mourn our dead, and treat each loss as a tragedy. Not the Tralfmadorians— they will do whatever their equivalent of shrugging is and move on. In peacetime, this behavior would seem absurd and out of place—however think about Billy’s situation during the novel. He is a POW facing an uncertain future, with death and violence surrounding him on all fronts. The Tralfmadorian philosophy of accepting death may bring comfort to him, as the alternative would only shred his mind further than it already clearly has been.

In Mumbo Jumbo we see the conflict between black Jes Grew culture and white Atonism. By the epilogue of the book, Jes Grew has developed into a recognized entity celebrated outside the Kathedral. However in the eyes of Papa Labas, it has been changed to the point of almost being unrecognizable. We can see similar things happen to real life black counter culture, specifically through music, such as the dilution of rap from a way for disadvantaged black teens to express themselves through music, into the corporate cookie cutter tracks of today; or taking black R&B music and refining and stealing credit from its creators to make rock music. Let’s not forget about disco, white washed and sanitized to the  point where even general audiences couldn’t stand it any more. In the real world, talking androids take over counter culture and ruin it for the masses, taking away what made it special in the first place. That’s why you can see Kendrick Lamar rapping on a Taylor Swift song, O.J...