Nov 4

 Ok. Somehow I got my dates messed up yesterday. It was not Nov 5 yesterday.

I don't know.

Today I am tired. And. Kind of pretending yesterday didn't happen.

Not entirely sure what to make of that either.

I have just shut down that whole path. I just am who I am. In a vacuum. The past is the past.

Nothing to see here.

I get it. I absolutely do get it. There is a vast difference between two days. And. That in itself is... uh huh... definitely a thing. And also. I am just kind of ignoring that as well.

I don't know. Am I in denial or something ? It's definitely weird.

I do find myself with something of a quiet desperation trying to find good memories about my parents. Come on. Find the happy moment. In some form of, I don't know, effort to prove everything wrong. And that they were fine. I was fine. It's all fine.

I don't know.

I just need to sit with it for sometime I think and let it all sink in. One way or the other. I think you can safely say that, Shit Is Going On. This is not the usual Status Quo.

Eh. Meh.

But anyway. For whatever reason. Today. I am treating yesterday like something of a fever dream. ( yes. I know how that sounds ). 

On a tangent.

My friend who runs the charity encounters a lot of casual misandry aimed either at him, or at any male colleagues in the "biz". The area he is in is dominated by young women, and, such are the times, casual misandry has become not only acceptable, but the norm. There is an irony here. About misogyny turning into misandry. Like a pendulum swinging from one awful thing to the next. You've not righted a wrong, so much as turned one wrong into a different kind of new exciting wrong.

For me, I see the sticky hands of the internet over it all. Everything slowly spirals down into extreme views, demonisation, a slow moving mental health disaster. Pick a topic. Watch the sides slowly devolve into a frenzy of hate.

The thing that sticks in my head of late is Stephen Fry's opening statement in the Munk debates about political correctness. And perhaps surprisingly. He stood on the side against the "correct thinking zeitgeist". For many. He stood on the side of the devils. Not the angels.

But his point was basically this. He agreed with the goal of all these things. To be fair to all. To accept all. But he didn't think being a bully about it, preachy, inquisitorial was effective. It alienated. Which is his point all over - about the polarisation of everything and the alienation of the Them from the Us. He makes a lot of related -eloquent - meandering points

The more subtle point in his intellectual stand. Was the berating of those methods. The shaming. The bullying. 

And whilst I agree with him on all points, the point about the how you carry yourself and are to others is very much the underlying theme. The Nietszche thing. Of those that hunt monsters becoming monsters themselves. Remember. Not to become the thing you hate.

Back to my friend in the charity. That's the thing. What you see there. Is casual hate. Casual demeaning, belittling, bullying, patronising.

In fact. Cutting through the bullshit of late I have just shortened it.

Being a cunt. Remove the why. Are you being a cunt ? I am uninterested in your rationalisation of why you think its ok to be a cunt. I am just calling out whether you're a cunt or not.

People can behave like cunts. It doesn't matter whether you have a noble goal, or some awful one. You can still behave like a cunt. Even in pursuit of the highest morality. You can be a cunt about it. Having a noble goal does not instantly clean you of all wrong doing and sins. Even though that old saw is often used. Hiding atrocities behind your veneer of good deeds. How many charitable deeds offsets genocide. How much money do I have to give to the offering box to remove my sins. The modern age has turned this into an art form. How to hide behind a plausible deniability. How to hide behind a good cause. An unassailable good. Whilst in the back. Committing all sorts of evils. Even the press. Freedom of the press. Bastion of democracy defence. Meanwhile slipping over fences to take lewd pictures for tittilation. Bugging phones of innocents, of the bereaved to get a juicy quote. A lovely headline. But when confronted. We are the bastions of freedom. 

But anyway. Back to the point. Having noble goals does not automatically preclude you from being a cunt. 

Or even more concisely.

Does the end justify the means ? 

Is it acceptable to behave in a deplorable way, to do any terrible thing. So long as you get to your glorious end point.

The answer, typically, unless it's a real immediate existential threat ( and even then, maybe not ), is always no. The end does not justify the means.

Let's remember where that end justifying the means came from. Macchiavelli. Who said the end did justify the means. Do whatever it takes. Get to the end.

A brutal and manipulative conclusion. Which in terms of getting shit done. Is absolutely correct. The cost is to be ignored. Only the end. Pave the roads with the bodies of the innocent. So long as it gets you to those wondrous golden gates. Yikes. No one said Machiavelli was about being cuddly and understanding.

The perhaps surprising thing in the modern age is that behaving like a cunt has become widely accepted. So long as you're being a cunt to the "right" group of people. And again, perhaps surprisingly. This applies equally to people on the left, or those fighting for fair rights, as it does people on the right, or self declared selfish assholes.

Cuntery has become a norm.

Any kind of casual student of history should maybe not really be surprised. Hating on targetted groups has been a perennial and popular past time for millennia. You're the wrong shape. You have the wrong skin colour. The wrong eyes. You come from the wrong part of the world. You are the wrong sex.

As I always say. Witch burning is always popular. It's just what you define as a witch that changes over time. The impulse to burn them is a constant. Pick a geographical location. Pick a time period. You will find the burned. And the gleeful burners. All the way right up to right this minute, right now.

But on listening to Stephen Fry, and sorting some of the chaff from the wheat, I have come to a more concise standpoint.

I agree with your goals. But I find you to be a cunt in the way you go about it. You are. A terrible person. With a noble goal.

I think that sums it up.

And it goes without saying. On the other side of the wall. There are people that can just be self declared cunts. Arch cunt and desperate wannabe Andrew Tate springs to mind to name one.

I despair about the modern world. It is very far from enlightened. It has to my mind taken a major step backwards. On all fronts.

And you can feel the violence rising.

Perhaps this is who we are. We always need a good bloodletting from time to time. To let off the steam.

You can watch Stephen Frys eloquent ( if long winded - with all due love ) opening below. It does, when you think about it, subtly point to an end doesn't justify the means standpoint - even if its dressed in the perhaps more politically neutral, I don't think you're effective. You just like being right. But the implication runs deep. You just like being a cunt.

Burn. The witch. *wild cheering*

Opening and closing statements.