Opinions are like sausages: lots to choose from, not all of them tasty.
My people on Twitter are splintering and I don’t think it’s an accident. We used to be a rag-tag bunch of faiths, creeds, sexual orientation, politics, environmentalism and beliefs united by the importance of free speech as the core value underpinning every other freedom we enjoyed in the western world.
The Covid War split that tribe in half. Ukraine had an effect, but not so much in my life. (I yelled at my brother for being too boomer to see beyond the truncated antecedence of the “Russia started it” narrative, but other than that it’s been a trifle when I view my life through a prism of reason, respect and responsibility for all human life.)‘Is it the sun or is it the toast?’ arguments about global warming pitted pollutants and consumption against each other in well-thought out premises whilst even the gays amongst us who were against same sex marriage were given a wide berth in which to park their arguments. The transing of children was a red line few in my tribe could countenance whilst “war, what is it good for?” got a firm absolutely nothing from each and every one of us.
"Lying, as we all know, does not take place only in war-time. Man, it has been said, isnot "a veridical animal," but his habit of lying is not nearly so extraordinary as his amazing readiness to believe. It is, indeed, because of human credulity that lies flourish. But in war-time the authoritative organization of lying is not sufficiently recognized. The deception of whole peoples is not a matter which can be lightly regarded." Arthur Ponsonby, 1928
The war to end all wars on the Judaean Desert horizon has had an entirely different effect. All of a sudden, cries of ‘facts be damned, feelings have been hurt’ have dominated the opens, monologues and tenor of guests on programming who’s talent have built entire careers proselytising the opposite when it comes to the culture war. Some of my favourite (and entertaining) talking heads have somehow been sucked in by this far-away war that has nothing to do with whether or not we’ll have meat and potatoes for dinner or whether our children will arrive at school safely tomorrow morning. It has nothing to do with how our hospitals run, or our roads are built, my roof stops leaking or lawn gets mowed. It has nothing to do with who makes my new phone or pair of jeans, whether or not my daughter studies interior design or law. It has even less to do with why it was sunny five minutes ago and now it’s raining.
And yet, it’s captured the hearts and minds of intelligent people like the culture wars failed to do. It’s back to 2002 and you’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists. As one side is variously referred to as Israel, Zionists, Jews, or Civilised and the other as Palestine, Hamas, Muslims, and Barbaric, both cling to victimhood or sling invectives such as Axis of Evil or Terrorist Occupiers with a purpose designed to maintain the binary code of war: there are only two sides. And my tribe is falling for it, failing to reflect on the antecedents, the events that led to this moment in time as if they no longer matter, because 85 year-old women have been kidnapped, ravers killed and because President Biden saw beheaded babies, a man who can’t even see the exit off a stage.
It no longer matters that revenge, in this instance, is a weak impulse leading to senseless slaughter that only after all is said and done, the fog of war rooted in deception and misdirection is seen for what really it is: a waste of human, environmental and intellectual resources that only furthers civilisation’s decent into complete and utter annihilation.
During the last school holidays, I set two novels as required reading for my children: 1984, and Brave New World, believing totalitarianism to be the most horrific outcome of censorship and division. But neither captures the wholesale adoption of ideology put on communities by Falsehood in War, penned in 1929 by the British MP, Arthur Ponsonby or Thomas Sowell’s, Basic Economics, two playbooks outlining in factual detail the hatred and mistrust fuelling never-ending conflict and endless subjugation.
An inability to define who and what the two sides are means everyone has a dog in the fight; mine’s probably western civilisation but I’m torn over the adoption of Arabic numerals. (What if the Arabs, who adopted the symbols from the Hindus, demanded we stop using them? Have we appropriated their culture? Could the Arabs demand a trade? Say, Gaza in exchange for unlimited use Arabic numerals?)
A complete disregard for the facts underpinning basic values in the service of feelings could finally end this experiment in evolving technology. From trade and settlement to guns and contraception, we’re increasingly threading a crooked needle that no longer binds us as a tapestry of unique voices and experiences. We’ve passed peak-prosperity and tolerance in the Western World and communications as a means of bridging differences.
We’re now making way for a New World Order where tribes are ever more fractured and isolated, bombing each other with truths that can no longer be tolerated amongst those who believe there are only two sides.
Good and evil. Right and wrong. Victim and aggressor. Black and white, red and blue. Binary thinking always neglects yin and yang, that no side is always right or that no side is whole heartedly evil. There are always at least three sides to any story, whether you were there or you heard it from someone else.
And yet, it’s captured the hearts and minds of intelligent people like the culture wars failed to do. It’s back to 2002 and you’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists. As one side is variously referred to as Israel, Zionists, Jews, or Civilised and the other as Palestine, Hamas, Muslims, and Barbaric, both cling to victimhood or sling invectives such as Axis of Evil or Terrorist Occupiers with a purpose designed to maintain the binary code of war: there are only two sides. And my tribe is falling for it, failing to reflect on the antecedents, the events that led to this moment in time as if they no longer matter, because 85 year-old women have been kidnapped, ravers killed and because President Biden saw beheaded babies, a man who can’t even see the exit off a stage.
It no longer matters that revenge, in this instance, is a weak impulse leading to senseless slaughter that only after all is said and done, the fog of war rooted in deception and misdirection is seen for what really it is: a waste of human, environmental and intellectual resources that only furthers civilisation’s decent into complete and utter annihilation.
During the last school holidays, I set two novels as required reading for my children: 1984, and Brave New World, believing totalitarianism to be the most horrific outcome of censorship and division. But neither captures the wholesale adoption of ideology put on communities by Falsehood in War, penned in 1929 by the British MP, Arthur Ponsonby or Thomas Sowell’s, Basic Economics, two playbooks outlining in factual detail the hatred and mistrust fuelling never-ending conflict and endless subjugation.
An inability to define who and what the two sides are means everyone has a dog in the fight; mine’s probably western civilisation but I’m torn over the adoption of Arabic numerals. (What if the Arabs, who adopted the symbols from the Hindus, demanded we stop using them? Have we appropriated their culture? Could the Arabs demand a trade? Say, Gaza in exchange for unlimited use Arabic numerals?)
A complete disregard for the facts underpinning basic values in the service of feelings could finally end this experiment in evolving technology. From trade and settlement to guns and contraception, we’re increasingly threading a crooked needle that no longer binds us as a tapestry of unique voices and experiences. We’ve passed peak-prosperity and tolerance in the Western World and communications as a means of bridging differences.
We’re now making way for a New World Order where tribes are ever more fractured and isolated, bombing each other with truths that can no longer be tolerated amongst those who believe there are only two sides.
Good and evil. Right and wrong. Victim and aggressor. Black and white, red and blue. Binary thinking always neglects yin and yang, that no side is always right or that no side is whole heartedly evil. There are always at least three sides to any story, whether you were there or you heard it from someone else.