Pap Smeared
Frogus Hornicus celebrating Pap Smear Day
We had a fastidious curriculum
At the Universal School of Pap
At noon we ate correctness
Before we took our nap
I know what you’re thinking, that the title is vulgar. Well…maybe the
the subject matter is even worse. What is pap? Here are some excerpts from the Oxford Dictionary Thesaurus:
pap
noun
1 a plateful of tasteless pap soft food, mush, slop, pulp, purée, mash, trademark Pablum; informal goo, goop, glop, gook.
2 commercial pap trivia, pulp (fiction), garbage, rubbish, nonsense; informal dreck, drivel, trash, twaddle, pablum.
pablum |ˈpabləm|
noun (also pabulum |ˈpabyələm|)
bland or insipid intellectual fare, entertainment, etc.; pap.
• (Pablum) trademark a soft breakfast cereal for infants.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent. (in the sense [food] ): from Latin, from the stem of pascere ‘to feed.’
Out of all the definitions and synonyms above, the trademark of “a soft breakfast cereal for infants” seems to say it all. Throw in nonsense, trivia and rubbish and you get the picture. For our part, we wish to explain simply with some examples, what it means to be pap smeared. The following is by no means exhaustive, but rather a small sample.
You know you’ve been pap smeared if:
You think that saying something like “I’ve given up on being right” proves that there is no right or wrong.
You think that saying “I’m spiritual” has any more meaning than saying “I’m hungry.”
You think that being correct politically is a mark of civil progress. The term, politically correct, is an oxymoron. It is nonsense.
You actually use the term “reproductive rights.” The term could perhaps mean something in China where people are punished for having too many children. But this term used in America is subterfuge. A right is a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something. In America it means the right to execute unwanted babies.
You don’t like the word morality so you substitute the word ethics. The word ethics is a neologism (new expression) that became a popular substitute for the word morality in the nineteenth century. Philosophers began to parse morality into a dozen different
perspectives. There is Applied Ethics, Descriptive Ethics, Meta Ethics, Normative Ethics, etc. etc. All are forms of Snake Oil used to escape the common sense understanding of right and wrong.
You’ve read “The Secret” and think it has one.
You watch Oprah Winfrey, or Dr. Phil. In fact anytime you watch television you risk being pap smeared.
You actually believe that CO2 is evil, that wind farms will help us more than they will help T. Boone Pickens, or that Al Gore is a genius.
You think that all religion is evil, or the same, or something we need to get beyond.
You think that “God hates fags” or that the extremist attempts to normalize homosexuality and legalize “gay marriage” is not an existential threat to society.
You think that government will ever be anything more than a “necessary evil.”
You think that you can be free and a socialist at the same time.
You think that feminism is meaningful beyond equal pay or decent treatment.
You think that university professors actually know anything about any segment of the real world that isn’t controlled by university professors.
Or you think that a college degree today means you are educated, or that you have necessarily obtained any real benefit beyond an expected higher paycheck.
You think that CNN, ABC, and CBS are “center,” or that NBC News or MSNBC are news organizations, or that Bill O’Reilly is looking out for you.
You think that man creates reality in the absolute or that the overwhelming masterpiece and evidence of universal design is the result of random selection.
You think that man strains out great thoughts, and that those thoughts are made of simple energy.
You think that your race has anything to do with your dignity, or that anyone possesses “secret” knowledge about humanity unavailable to you.
You think that the concept of God is an art project…
I think I need a hike.