An image of terminal decadence

Here is a recent photograph of Demi Moore, mother of Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah, at some Hollywood party, dancing in front of the half-black, half-Jewish musician Lennie Kravitz:

We see a female celebrity, formerly beautiful or at least very comely, now noticeably frayed around the edges, seemingly offering herself to a seated, tattooed Negro idol, who, narcissistically absorbed in his own reveries, or his drugs, looks away indifferently or disgustedly. The white woman, once a movie star, once part of the “royalty” of our society, is too drunken and debased for even the savage idol to take an interest in her.

Of course readers will say I’m reading too much into it. Maybe Moore just happens to be standing next to Kravitz and is not directing her desperate charms at him. Maybe Kravitz is not even aware of Moore. Nevertheless, the photo is iconic. I see it as a fitting symbol of the approaching end of our civilization. As such, it also reverberates in my mind with the concluding lines of W.B. Yeats’s bitterest poem, “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen,” the entirety of which is about the end of civilization:

But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.

Dame Alice Kyteler, in the fourteenth century, was the first woman in Ireland charged and condemned as a witch; she was specifically charged for consorting with a demon named Robert Artisson. Here she is offering the demon sacrificial gifts—one of them, the bronzed peacock feathers, very precious and refined, suggesting the lady’s own nobility and refinement, the other consisting of animal parts, symbolic of primitive lust. For a woman, especially a high-born woman, to give herself to a demon is Yeats’s ultimate symbol of the destruction of civilization.

And what phenomenon do we see throughout the West today, not just occurring spontaneously, but deliberately orchestrated and promoted by the all-powerful mass media? Attractive white women offering themselves to Negro primitives—who, by the way, with a frequency far outpacing that of any other type of coupling, turn on them and savagely kill them.

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Matthew H. writes:

This image is profound. Note that Kravitz is giving the finger with a jaded and menacing smirk.

This is America 2012: a skanky old whore waving her rear end in the face of a contemptuous punk in a desperate bid to get his attention.

In 100 years the type of American womanhood has gone from this,

beautiful, confident, and capable, to sleazy and desperate.

Richard S. writes:

I must admit discomfort at your use of the word “savage” to describe Kravitz. As far as I know, he has not exhibited any behavior that would warrant the term.

LA replies:

I don’t know anything about the man—his life, his actions, his behavior. He manifestly looks like a savage. That is his significance to me.

Readers often don’t understand what I’m about. When I post photos of people in the news and comment on their meaning, I’m not making personal comments about those people or evaluating their personal character or private life; I’m not thinking about their private life at all. I am looking at those pictures as representations of our culture.

Years ago I posted a beautiful picture of Sophia Loren circa 1960 and entitled it, “Sophia Loren: the friendly goddess.” Some readers immediately began criticizing Loren for her sex life at that time. That was completely irrelevant to what I was doing. I was talking about the way she looked, her dress, her expression, what she conveyed, what she showed about the culture of that time as compared to the culture of our time. Her private life was not my subject and was no concern of mine.

An exception is when I am writing about people whose personal actions are the very subject being discussed, such as Adam Lanza and his mother Nancy.

Ed H. writes:

It’s interesting how even our visual eye has been conditioned by Political Correctness. We see a black man surrounded by white people. We are so busy reminding ourselves not to be racist that no one notices that Len is giving the finger. Class act Len, you da man.

December 18

JB writes:

Kravitz is not giving the finger. If you look carefully, you can see he is in the process of snapping his finger, because his thumb is folded underneath his middle finger. Demi Moore is doing the same with her left hand.

This is not a mere coincidence. They are both snapping their fingers at precisely the same time because they are listening to music. They have synchronized the finger snapping to the rhythm of the music. The music also explains why Demi Moore is dancing.

Al B. writes:

Thank you for your great website. I’d just like to correct some of your commenters on one of your latest posts. That photo of a desperate Demi Moore is, indeed, despicable but Kravitz does not seem to me to be giving the finger. Both Kravitz and Moore are clicking their fingers to the music. It’s clear if you zoom in on his fingers. Ed H. is usually a powerhouse but in this case he is seeing something that isn’t there.

Thank you again for putting out VFR.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 17, 2012 10:29 AM | Send