the emperor has no clothes.

growing up, i never really understood the fable of the emperor's new clothes, except as a work of pure fiction.

i mean, i got how a child could tell a truth that adults couldn't seem to see, but the metaphor was just too stark and obvious.

the emperor parading about in the raw, while all his sycophants and supporters praise his amazing new clothes. ok, then a kid comes along and states the obvious, and suddenly everyone sees, oh, yeah, the emperor has no clothes. fine, but the setup was just too implausible.

how could the crowd not see something *that* obvious?

i thought it had to be a metaphor. and indeed i still think it was a metaphor, though it seems an overly clumsy one, lacking in the essential complexity or subtlety that makes the illusion of the emperor's new clothes plausible to being with.


then came benedict donald.


with his insistence that there are 5 lights when all can see that there are 4, with his insistence that things he said on tape never happened, with his outright lies -- and then, more important, with the media shamelessly repeating his lies and his followers insisting that he's right, no matter how obvious the lie.

i no longer see the emperor's new clothes setup as implausible.

i'd say we've entered the twilight zone, but for some reason it feels more like the middle ages....