A review by mmarty228
Generation of Vipers by Philip Wylie

challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

Borrowing from the British Anglican church, the American church has succeeded in helping Americans be proud that they are "the slickest bunch of cheaters in the history of time," per Philip Wylie in his 83-year-old Generation of Vipers tirade. He noted that Christians are often mass murderers and "the so-called 'social' smile--like a valentine laced around an ice pick..." is a reoccurring societal theme. Famous for its "momism" chapter (Common Women), GoV is more generally a recommendation to stop kicking the can down the road, to overturn society's lies, to "take the skeletons out of our closets," and to follow St. Luke 11:36 into perfect light that has no germ of darkness in it. 

 "The incalculable smugness of the American" prevents such a direction, and, in some ways, the current administration seems to be using some of Wylie's ideas as a blueprint. 

 [T]he American rabble rouser of the near future could take 

 this implied platform... for a red-white-and-blue totalitarianism 

 and, under the banner of, "Down with Jewish-Communist- 

 Science" transfix fitful millions exactly as Hitler did. Indeed... 

 he should be stopped in his tracks. 

The "hordes of squeaking" priests appeal to the church-goers (who "have no theology" except for the "values of the Pharisees") as they preach only "the book, the man, and the church" because the biggest donors prefer this sort of misinformation which prohibits data related to, for instance, pertinent "psychological and physical sex information" (cf Marty's Sex with Jesus or Ideal Intercourse). Analogous to the 1950s red elephant Republican McCarthy (a "senatorial führer from the beer halls of Milwaukee"), the businessman politician complains of witch hunts that interfere with his rights and privileges, and he frequently goes into convulsions because of such. 

 Though not proposing that all afflicted people "should be quietly put to sleep," Wylie does attack doctors for being a tight-knit, lip-locked society, with "little protective interest in your health" and "a cash motive for it to get bad," preferring "patients [who] die lingeringly... at great expense..." while they espouse the dangers of modern vaccinations. He also spends a little time attacking Anti-Semitism, and defending the "one big family" of Jews who use "depraved art" to poison "the rest of humanity," even though some of his expressions aren't completely convincing. His differentiation between thoughts and feelings is laudable but muddled, and he acknowledges that the sauve qui peut, manic-depressive nature of most of American society is considered funny in "sophisticated" circles (who maintain power by the suppression of information). 

 "The U.S.A. is technically insane... The chaos of our society is the product of the dishevelment of our ideas..." American infantilism is promulgated by the continuation of the John Dewey laboratories at Columbia University. In fact, "the profit-crazed advertisers... produce a nervous sex urge in everybody..." that prompts "needless frustration" and causes inadvertent Cinderella wishes without understanding that there is little substantive difference in America "between so-called loose women and professional prostitutes" who give "permission" in exchange for "something material in return for it." 

And Thomas Crooks, he acted alone (lol)--"our churches, courts, legislative bodies, and the fourth estate" formally pretend that "crooks" (like Crooks) are an "individual abnormality" in the U.S.A. and that such perplexing events are always caused by one of the few unstable, mentally-deranged, unhappy persons in the country. (How are you?) The "ecclesiasticism of cash" always helps pave the untrue messages about the people who've lost their minds. In such a society, both men and women, with rare exceptions, prefer to escape into "unrealness and infantile unreasonableness." All widespread awareness of this "fact" is preeminently prevented (cf https://s.surveyplanet.com/hl0y21eq). 

We live for what we die for. "Death is not merely an industrial hazard or the result of careless driving..." it is what we all are racing towards. Contemporary America is a bribe; "she has the prince, the coach, the horses--but her soul's a pumpkin..."#didyougetajahbyet