The Mountain Dwellers

The Mountain Dwellers is the third book in a trilogy, following The Gods of Our Time and Dreams and Illusions Revisited. Like the latter, it seeks to draw out some of the themes touched upon but not developed in The Gods of Our Time. The Gods of Our Time was meant to be hard-hitting, provocative and stirring, while the books that follow attempt to flesh out the background to the aphorisms and allusions with which it is peppered.

It is a common and enduring characteristic of what the author calls Mountain Dwellers that they lament the decline of what they define as civilisation and express their regret by distancing themselves, if not geographically then morally or spiritually or intellectually, from all those whose ignorance of, or indifference to, such matters, can only hasten its decline. Now that the foundations or tenets of civilisation are perceived to be increasingly under threat, those who care sufficiently to want to preserve them have awakened from their slumbers to the almost martial tread of pseudo-intellectuals, and others stultified by the intoxicating influence of political correctness, who prefer either to call civilisation by another name and, by opposing, denigrate it, or else, retaining the word, alter its definition, rendering the term meaningless by brazenly and ignorantly extending its inclusivity to infinity.

The Mountain Dwellers touches on themes of fundamental importance: Individuality, Language, Political Correctness, Religion, Education, Mediocrity and Role Models; these different strands are brought together by arguing that progress forward is invariably accompanied by retrogressive reaction, a reaction, however, that is capable of halting progress in its tracks and negating it; progress and these retrogressive and nullifying tendencies are alluded to figuratively by The Halls of Enlightenment and The Corridors of Darkness.

Dettagli