malibu stacey impersonator, paris hilton, has buzzed into town with the intention of lifting australia’s spirits by trying on dresses in our high street boutiques. lucky us. the media is doing its bit too, obsequiously following her every move. it’s nice to see deference isn’t dead.looking back, it seems 20th century philosophy was mostly concerned with the problem of meaning in a disenchanted (i.e. godless) world. to sartre and his gauloises-stained chums the answer was ‘commitment’; usually commitment to an obnoxious political ideology of some kind. any kind. it didn’t matter which. so long as it promised to smash liberal democracy.* above all, it was freedom they despised.
this is where paris hilton’s “pink revolution” comes in. her response to the crisis of life’s meaninglessness is to pull out her bloomingdale’s card and cry “charge it!”. hence melbourne and sydney are just two more stops on her mission to spread the redemptive message of “self-realization through shopping”. she's a postmodern aimee semple mcpherson. sal-vay-shun!
the new year’s looking up already.
*remnants of it still survive today. witness those forlorn little gatherings in berlin and london cheering on hamas against israel, or else bemoaning the introduction of democracy in iraq.
