Romantic Anarchists

I'm starting to wonder if we've truly moved into a "post-modern" age. The current obsession with "the margins," to regurgitate the Derridean metaphor, appears to me more and more like a continuation of the Romantics' infatuation with le bon sauvage. In the narratives of these latter-day Rousseauians, the championed always seem to be exotic in some way or other, the current favorites being non-white, non-Christian immigrants of various types, who are seen (accurately, I'm afraid) as naturally subversive of whatever vestiges of Western Christendom remain. In the NY Times article below, notice how the perspective of the long-time area residents is not even considered except as an object of ridicule. Apparently, the continuation of any kind of coherent, traditional identity, even of the most general kind, is not something that is to be permitted these benighted folks, who labor under the delusion that it is "their" community. One wonders, though, if this "more-diverse-than-thou" snobbery would be sustained if the "Fugees" were relocated to Upper Manhattan instead of suburban Atlanta.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/us/21fugees.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper