love vs civilization
Mayan youth, a quietly defiant demographic, have been playing “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem and Rihanna over and over. So I read the lyrics.
OMG.
I hear a torturous description of true love colliding with a singularly unworkable culture, internally and externally. Perforce, most of us give up on, fail at, or get ruined forever by true love because we are already too shattered, and the social context necessary to maintain love is cynically absent. Only manageable and “sensible” relationships remain, being better than nothing. This song represents to me a blistering indictment of civilization, its inherent bankruptcy, and the thoroughgoing resignation and selling out that it demands and gets from all but a few, whose autonomy is not a theat. Like Sinead sang years ago, “They only laugh ‘cause they know they’re untouchable, not because what I said was wrong.”