Twilight of the Idols

Long but interesting piece in City Journal about the significance of modern iconoclasm. My bottom line: Replacing the statues of heroes with those of victims exalts the nation's dominant cult: victimhood. Only the Victim is pure. The culture that valorizes victimhood is saying that achievement is a sham because it inevitably creates losers whose victimhood trumps any good the achievement has created. So we become trapped, frozen by the impossibility of doing anything because our new Cult will seek out and exalt its "victims" as martyrs - no matter how few - above the benefit to the many.