Postmodernism in the world down-under

Carlos Caso-Rosendi

I was watching some political program in BA television today when I heard some mustached fool say something about not even considering the input of “superstition, religion” in the debate about the legalization of abortion in this forsaken country. Apparently that guy was being interviewed because he lives in Barcelona and is a Socialist. Two very important credentials in a country that Fr. Leonardo Castellani defined as hopelessly “tilingo”. Because there is always someone who does not speak the local dialect, let me explain what tilingo (fem. tilinga) means. The voice comes from tilín which is a tinkle, or a small bell. In the coloquial Spanish of coastal Argentina and Uruguay  the word is an adjective applied to a person that is not bright,  a fool that speaks nonsense and behaves with great affectation. Someone like the Hurree Chunder Mookherjee, the Huree Babu of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. But the Babu was lovable…

This leads me to another related local word: chantapufi. (pron. shan-tah-pooh-fee) That comes most likely from the Genovese language, a variation of the languages spoken from Catalunya, and Southern France, to Monaco and Northern Italy. It has two parts chanta from the Gaelic  xantar  that is to eat or chew, and pufi, from a word of the same origin: puffi,  meaning “sighs” — originally our  chantapufi was someone who was reduced to eat sighs, puffs of air, an euphemism for nothing at all; someone who had trouble making ends meet but was willing to take on any job to make some money, even if he had no idea of how to do such task. Brazilians still use that figure of speech for those who are down and out: comer luz, that is: to eat sunlight.  The typical chantapufi is always late in paying his bills and actively trying not to pay them. The word could have been used also by President Trump when he called the European NATO partners, “delinquent”.

But I digress … A chantapufi in BA is someone who has reached his own level of incompetence rather early. I could point at a few that you know well but I don’t want to be sued. I ‘m sure you get my drift.

Well, Mr Moustachio on Argentine TV, is one of those. He confesses that he hoped and worked to establish a Socialist system of government for Argentina but did not succeed. That does not mean that he gave up on his plans. His own fracas, the growth of poverty, the plummeting value of labor, the astronomical prices of the most basic products, and the general incompetence fostered by Argentina’s “democracy” surely do not faze him. He and his friends are going to give us Socialism even if that idea has produced the death of millions, and the destruction of every society where it has been tried.

These Socialists are a hard-headed lot. They want to save us even if they have to kill us in the process. With saviors like that, who needs to be saved? But we have enemies, and we have to know them. Marxists revolutionaries are on the way out, headed for the sewer of history. Our enemy today is Postmodernism. That is what we are up against. The chantapufi, don’t give up. They want to rule the world and they imagine they can do it. After all, if they don’t get the gig: what are they going to do? They don’t have any profitable skills. They were born to lead mankind. That is their vocation!

Postmodernism is the grandson of the original Marxism. You know, Karl Marx, the failed Jewish philosopher that had to marry a Rothschild. Money has to come from someone or one may end up dining air al fresco like most chantapufis do. A Rothschild girl surely can take care of a materialistic philosopher’s material needs!

The good news is that most Postmodern philosophers are dead: Derrida and Foucault being the most damaging. They took a dive into the lake burning with fire and brimstone, but first they made sure we get a nice cloud of sulfurous gases to poison our societies. The sum of their destructive ideas we call Postmodernism. In all truth, they were not even original, they got the core, the most damaging ideas from Hegel, another thinker who went to hell in a hand basket made of gasoline.

I always regretted not having completed my education until I realized that to understand Postmodernism and accept it, one has to be fully educated and owe some bank about 200 grand tuition loan. Am I lucky or what?

Tomorrow, I promise to continue unmasking Postmodernism for you. Until then, beware of sunlight eaters who insist in saving you. You don’t want to end up like the  poor Argentine  chantapufis.