- A reclusive American icon, a true legend has quietly
passed in Cornish, New Hampshire at the age of 91. He was JD Salinger,
one of America's most highly regarded authors, yet he did not publish anything
since 1965.
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- An article in the UK Guardian featured three authors
commenting on the works of a great author. Particularly, Joyce Carol
Oates hit on the point that I emphasize in this essay.
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/29/jd-salinger-tribute
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- The most powerful part of the writings of J.D. Salinger
was how he focused on the central theme of the moral rootlessness of American
materialism and the insidious effects that has on the personalities and
persona of America's children and adults. The book was written for
adults but over time adolescents began to read it and were connecting to
its messages of aloneness, belonging, alienation, rebellion, etc.
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- We as a people cannot even find and elect decent honorable
leadership, because the mirror of our society is exactly the mirror image
we see in Washington DC politicos that we so vehemently detest, yet do
not realize we are looking at ourselves in that mirror. That is a
pretty good way to define moral rootlessness when one cannot correctly
identify what they are looking at.
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- His most famous work was "The Catcher in the Rye",
a single novel published in 1951 that eclipsed his other works either rightfully
or wrongly.
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- I remember a time that if it got out that someone owned
a copy of 'The Catcher in the Rye', odds were they would be labeled a communist,
rebellious, or renegade, put on an FBI watch list and labeled a potential
terrorist, a threat to the American way of life, and possibly even a murderer
or serial killer. It was at one time a banned book, the message was
so powerful.
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- The book has been casually and causally linked to several
killers, such as Mark David Chapman's murder of John Lennon, and John Hinckley,
Jr's attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It
has been in many movies as a set object, and even in the Mel Gibson movie
'Conspiracy Theory' where assassins are programmed to buy the book. In
the Kevin Costner movie "Field of Dreams" the original script
had him kidnapping JD Salinger, not Terence Mann played by James Earl Jones.
The fictional book that Mann wrote was 'The Boat Rocker' and was
a euphemism for 'The Catcher in the Rye'.
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- George H W Bush has been quoted as saying 'The Catcher
in the Rye' inspired him. The father John Hinckley, Sr and George
H W Bush are close friends, and a copy of 'The Catcher in the Rye' was
found in Hinckley's hotel room after he tried to kill Reagan. Of
course, George H W Bush was Vice President at the time under Reagan and
would have been president had Hinckley succeeded. If that does not
send a chill up your spine, nothing will.
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- The only reason that I am writing this essay is to challenge
you to look at the bigger picture. A man named JD Salinger wrote
a novel in 1951 that was focused on 'the moral rootlessness of American
materialism' and how that creates alienation. There is little doubt
that JD Salinger was a rebel, a recluse, somewhat eccentric, but he was
also prophetic to have seen as early as 1951 a fundamental and structural
flaw in the American way of life that teaches self as more important than
the whole, and 'me, me, me' is more important than the wellbeing of the
many. The message Salinger wrote about is that a way of life that
teaches that materialism and plundering the world and other nations to
support a vapid, shallow lifestyle was and is wrong.
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- Take a hard look at America right now, and the past 20,
30 and 40 years. It is abundantly clear there is a huge flaw in the
materialism and consumerism mindset of America, where no amount of materialism
brings happiness, peace of mind, or contentment in the heart.
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- Our Republic has devolved into a chaotic place where
materialism overshadows values, rule of law is meaningless, no lie is too
big to tell to achieve the god of materialism and prop up the illusion
that American materialism and consumerism is a moral lifestyle. We
even have avowed Christians thumping their chests about how cool it is
to go to far off lands to kill, so we Americans can have stuff we think
we alone deserve.
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- Our nation is waging two illegal wars right now that
are indicative of how 'moral rootlessness' our American materialism has
become. Sadly, the cretins in Washington DC are even trying
to create and start more wars for resources to continue to prop up the
materialism and consumerism mindset of Americans.
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- If you cannot keep up with the facts and realities happening
around this world, shorten and narrow the focus so you can grasp it. When
you pump gasoline into your vehicle, come to grips with the fact that people
are being slaughtered so you can have cheap gasoline to go shop and exercise
your self-avowed materialistic rights. When you go to WalMart and
buy the super cheap goods, stop and consider how little people are being
paid to make the cheap stuff on the other side of the world and living
in a life of poverty so you can have lots of stuff.
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- I remember as a child having some pretty slim Christmas
mornings, but it did not ruin my childhood. I was thankful for any
present that Santa Claus, or my mother and father, aunt and grandfather
gave to me. Now days, children seem to feel abused and neglected
if there are less than 10 presents under the Christmas tree. Some
expect and demand there be many more than 10. Many have bought off on the
illusion (or delusion) that materialism and consumerism is the essence
of life. It is all about 'stuff' rather than substance. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
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- One of the most disturbing trends I have seen grow in
America over the past 30 years is the demand for more and more and appreciate
none of it. That pretty well defines moral rootlessness to me.
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- Thank you, JD Salinger for at least warning us. May
you now rest in peace.
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