Wednesday, March 26, 2014

My Coma

In May of 2007 I created this blog off the fly.  All I did was give it a name.  "Amnesiac America". Seven years later, I happened to be looking at the (usually dismal) stats on my blogs. It was then that I noticed the amazing fact that this blog ( the only one where I never wrote a single post ) had more page views by far than all my others combined many times over. I have a hypothesis as to why this happened. Nevertheless, I wondered what kind of stats might be attained if there were actual posts with content congruent with the title. This is the start of that trial.

No amnesia is identical.  It usually appears as a constellation of broad areas of no memory together with some idiosyncratic deficits.  This syndrome is unique in each case.  I use here the medical analogy; each person presenting a syndrome unique to the circumstances under which it occurred.  It's cause is physical, psychological, or both.  An analogy of course is always limited.  I probably will be unable to relate any physical parallel.  No literary device, that I know of, can be useful here, and if there were, I believe it would distract rather than clarify.  Also, there remains the question of refering to the whole of America or to a typical American, a distinction would appear to serve no purpose.  I would point out, however, that Americans are at this point in history  more similar as a group than ever before.  Some may disagree with this of course, yet this perspective facilitates my argument without removing any important individual character that we may possess.  Individuality may be an American ideal we cherish, but I believe we have forgotten its function, moreover, whether we know it or not it has become more a liability than a virtue.
       
    

 

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