Once Again...

P.J. O'Rourke is one of my literary favorites, a counterpart, as it were, to Hunter Thompson, but one with a smattering of economics (which Thompson would probably have taken out and shot rather than have actually bothered to read), albeit not much more than that.

Recently he wrote this for the Weekly Standard:

The Road to Woodstock is "by" Michael Lang, one of the two original promoters, "with" Holly George-Warren who is coeditor of The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll and thus, presumably, knows the alphabet. I have no idea how much of the book Lang wrote, but he doesn't seem to have read it. He is described therein by a pair of ex-business partners as having "a face that is, by turns, evil, wanton, fey, impish, and innocent." This is more than I would let ex-business partners of mine say about me in my book.

And yet, if you reverse the order of the adjectives, you get the progress of the sixties, perfectly delineated.

Bingo.

The progress of the sixties went from innocent to impish to fey to wanton and finally evil.


Just like progressivism of today. It's past the innocent and impish and definitely on its way through fey to wanton: except the evil to show up towards 2011/2012 as it demonizes whoever dares run against President Obama.