A Coney Island of the Mindless

What started out as an excursion to the beach ended up being the cultural equivalent of the cautionary tale. When Mike Jones and his son arrived at Coney Island on their way to the beach, they found their way blocked by 750,000 people, police barricades, and, most formidable of all, mermaids. They had stumbled across the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, "an excuse to go naked in New York City." Given Coney Island's history as "Sodom by the Sea," the exhibitionism of the mermaids was not entirely unexpected, but the decadence was palpable nonetheless.

Coney Island was never particularly edifying, but it only became culturally toxic when it became a Coney Island of the mind and amusement became synonymous with vice, to enslave an American populace that could best be characterized as the Coney Island mindless.

Renowned cultural critic E. Michael Jones is the editor of Culture Wars magazine.