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there are a lot of conservatives who can't cope with the fact that value is a rhetoric, a way of framing certain types of sentences that are thereby made to refer to the world in a particular range of ways.
values have to be something substantive, like a tree stump or a napkin. things. things you can put in your pocket and walk around with and that won't leak out and stain your pants so you look incontinent. solid. like a bulldozer. but small. like a little bulldozer then. a matchbox.
values are things that you can put in your pocket and carry around that don't leak onto your pants just in case someone not inside your skull asks: "so just how american are you, anyway? and how would i know?" because that way you're prepared:
you can take them out of your pocket and line them up on the table in front of you.
tree stump. napkin. little yellow bulldozer.
i'm like totally american, bucko.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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