The Great Shantytown plausibility structure, April 29, 2024.

Interduction.

On one level, the protests at Columbia should have been the easiest thing in the world to fix.

All you needed was about 14 fire trucks and 28 fire hoses all going full blast.

The problem almost solves itself. But on another

level nothing can really be done. No amount of fire trucks or riot police or

speeches by the Speaker of the House or isolated expulsions or stern letters to the times can address the actual problem, the problem we actually have.

The actual problem is that the goddess of secularism is despaired of her project and she's gone off to have her nails done somewhere, somewhere else, anywhere else.

The Enlightenment Project, once so full of hope and promise, is now a sodden mess like Voltaire's birthday cake left out in the rain.

The problem is a theological crisis, one created by the failure and collapse of the gods of the

secular public square.

This thing isn't working anymore.

The prayers are still said. The litanies are offered, the sacrifices are made,

the smoke of sins and yet the gods remain silent. They remain silent of necessity, truth

be told, because they aren't there and never were. That was always the weak point in this

particular theology. But it used to be that lots of people believed that they were

there and that was good enough for a while, for a time, a rancid distraction. I want to start by saying that the virulent displays of

anti-Semitism in these protests are a distraction from the main issue, but not because

virulent hatred for anybody is ever a sideshow, So because of the gaudy and toxic nature of that

distraction, I need to say something about it before getting to the main issue. The infernal genius of

anti-Semitism is that it is schizophrenic. It manages to be simultaneously, overly

intellectual, and excessively stupid. The kind of hatred that is generated in

...