Define Normal

I had a brief, but useful interchange on Twitter the other day, regarding rights, in particular the rights of people not to wear a mask and to refuse to give a reason when challenged. It turns out that to insist somebody explain why they refuse to follow the rules everybody else follows is an example of ‘indirect discrimination’. So, even if you think you are doing the right thing and following the guidance you can still be a bigoted monster with hatred in your heart.

What chance have we got against this? Along with involuntary micro-aggressions and the ridiculous CPS definition of perceived offence we are stuck between an immoveable object and, er… another immoveable object. Is breathing now likely to upset somebody – I mean, it might bother somebody who wishes you dead, but hang on isn’t the aggression in this case coming from them? My dogged determination to continue existing could be criminalised. To me, all this sounds like a five-star buffet for the human rights lawyers and their hangers-on.

The whole issue of human rights is a mess. Most ordinary people, of sound mind and reasonable expectation might imagine that, enshrined in law, should be rights to live your life free of threat, extreme hardship and undue harassment. It would be nice if everybody could be safe, secure, nourished and accepted. But what the movement has done is challenge, perhaps rightly, to a point, the concept of normal.

Copying verbatim from different sources, normal is variously defined as: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected - characterised by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine - the standard or the common type - usual; thinking, behaving, or looking like most people approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment – and in the context we are concerned with here - free from any mental disorder; sane.

Ah, sane. Who gets to decide? Where does simple human tolerance for eccentricity in all its forms end and how far beyond that does ‘tolerance’ have to be enforced by law? Where, for instance do people who go so far as to wholeheartedly support gender election stand on transableism? This story from five years ago popped up on Twitter the other day and I quote-tweeted it. To date I have had around 500 replies and over 1000 likes and quote-tweets, not one of them in support. It clearly bothers people. 

This is, surely about as far from normal as it is possible to get. Actually wanting to be physically disabled (not just pretending) but also to be accepted as ‘normal’ has to be about as far from normal as it is possible to get. But, if you think about it, we have been coerced to embrace so many aberrant states that we now accept as ‘normal’ people who are almost entirely unique – the polar opposite of what normal actually means. War is peace, indeed.

If you search for body dysmorphia, body identity disorder, apotemnophilia and various other medical terms don’t forget to also check out Munchausen’s, paraphilia and narcissism. And if you do, try to decide whether you view all of this as normal, atypical, dangerous or just plain weird. And then ask yourself why we normies should pay for it all, because it is always those who conform to society’s norms who pay for its fringes.

If, on the other hand, you are on the side of humanities oddities, you might like to consider how theirs is a realm of strange self-justification. Some will no doubt land lucrative positions to proselytise for their causes and be given credence disproportionate to their numbers. To show solidarity, a certain flavour of politician will fly their flag and assist in the creation of every more nuanced and unfathomable human rights bear traps for the rest of us to fall into. Prepare yourselves for a future containing more transhumanism, transdeathism, transMartiansim or whatever. Expect free trans-trading where you can one day be a transabled black lesbian and the next become a ghost inhabiting the shell of a white, cisgendered paedophile.

Treading on eggshells here...

Me, I’m waiting for the day when I can self-identify as a comic-book superhero. I will campaign to force everybody to recognise and accept my transformation into that persona and address me by my proper name – TransHeroLord. And then, when my super powers fail to manifest, I expect to be granted the legal right to sue the state, with the full expectation that compensation will flow. How DARE you mock my lack of disability!

Are you Sure?

Let me state, once again and for the record, I think Donald Trump is an idiot. But ‘evil’, seriously? A traitor; on what basis? The actual devil? Do me a favour; even for gullible god-brothers that is just childish. The hyperbole of antipathetic commentators is bordering on hysterical. In fact, strike that, it is hysterical. Some of the statements coming out of the House of Representatives would shame a teenage wannabe horror writer searching for the language to shock. The obvious hypocrisy can most readily be seen in the descriptions from these same commentators, of the BLM shittery last summer. ‘Mostly peaceful’ said the on-the-spot reporter to the background of burning cars, wrecked businesses and running battles on streets across the USA.

But this is how language has deteriorated in the Internet age. In the search for ever more reach the headline writers have become mainstream ‘journalists’. 'Phew, what a scorcher' just wouldn’t attract the clicks today. The next heatwave would have to be some idiocy such as: 'Searing tongues of flame straight from the jaws of hell itself burns millions alive! Devil to give evidence at Senate hearing'. Or some such bollocks; because it is all bollocks, isn’t it?

In my day job I deal with physics, of a specific variety, and of course physics is pretty much tied to observable repeatable phenomena and dare I say it, facts. But I frequently discover how little I actually know about these long-established realities. I know what I need to know, but how deep does my knowledge go? Often I discover my real understanding barely scratches the surface. And this is stuff I study and teach and often research from a wide variety of sources which 100% agree on those actualities.

So where do I stand on coming to an opinion on subjects about which I have no first-hand knowledge; things I only hear or read after they have been filtered through the febrile minds of partisans? Left and right in politics; pro or anti masks and vaccinations, meddling child or working class hero Rashford, etc... Every day there seem to be new campaigns to get behind, situations about which you are positively urged to take a position. But how are some people so solidly on one side of the fence when only a part of the scenario is revealed?

Confirmation bias is so strong that it often affects people whose very existence is founded on a search for truth. The moral philosophers who really ought to be able to consider things in the round are invariably of one single mind and pursue that track relentlessly. And the rest of us look to all kinds of unproven, untested demagogues to tell us what to think. My mate’s an expert; I have a friend who is a nurse and she says... ; the science is settled (it rarely ever is); the Bible tells us… And the most flippant of all: “everybody knows”.

They say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and I am as guilty as anybody of proving that truism. But I do try and I do, sometimes, change my mind. Clearly, then, I must be a dangerous far right troll, believing, as I do, that nobody should suffer, but all have responsibility for their actions. How is it possible that I can see some of the good in both socialism and capitalism? What kind of a monster am I? Why won’t I just behave like the fash I so clearly am?

Certainty is a dangerous illusion, but so certain are some people in positions of power and influence that they believe they get to decide when free speech becomes hate speech. The flag-waving cheerleaders for direct action against the state throughout last summer have decided that when the other side takes a stand it is repugnant. Who gets to decide what is and isn’t insurrection? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, where is hatred perceived?

I haven’t penned a blog for a while, partly because I have been swamped at work, but also because I haven’t had the will. Some days I feel I am drowning in a sea of idiots, taking at face value all that they are told. This is something children do, but don’t we tell children not to blindly believe what others tell them? Don’t we tell them not to just copy the bigger boys? Do we no longer teach them to think for themselves? Maybe it’s time we started.

Poll of Polls

In a poll of people who enjoy the attention of being regularly polled, 78% of those who just love to be consulted think that polls provide accurate insights into important matters of the day, regardless of the sample size, cohort demographic and quality of the questions, just so long as the exercise produces the right answer. There is a debate to be had as to what constitutes ‘the right answer’ but without drilling down deeply into the data it can be assumed to be whatever it was the poll set out to find in the first place.

So, following several decades in which the BBC’s popularity and relevance to the general population’s values, hopes and fears has suffered progressive decline it has come as no surprise that the latest poll finds no better than 50% satisfaction with the corporation’s offerings. When I say it comes as no surprise, I include Aunty herself, an organisation which is regularly slated for its soft, woke, lefty stance on everything by… well by about half the population.

What then, is the point of polling when the result is exactly what was expected? And given that any poll which doesn’t match your expectation is automatically derided as rigged, fake, or taken at at the wrong time or place by the ‘wrong’ people, why even bother at all? What is the point, why are there so many polls, and what do they bring to the nations’ health, well-being or prosperity?

There is such a thing as push-polling, where the published outcomes are intended to coerce the masses into believing a thing they don’t believe. You know all about them; Britain is institutionally racist, the EU was the only thing that prevented war in Europe, employees say that diversity is more important than competence, that sort of thing. Companies use polls to sell their products, governments to sell their policies. You can’t fucking breathe for polls, ever minute of every day of your choose-an-option life.

But does any of it improve anything? Given that the automatic reaction of most people to pollsters, in person, online, or on the phone is to shun them, the outcome of polling may be heavily influenced by those who have nothing better to do with their time. It could be just that some people actually feel important if they are asked their views, but should we listen to what such people think?

An entire sector of our economy is based on information, regardless of how accurate that information is, and right now accurate information could be literally life-saving. But the polling trade has never been concerned with accuracy. How much opinion, both lay and professional, is shaped by inaccurate polling - doubtful outputs shaped by dodgy inputs, results pre-ordained by political and other biases – and how many poor decisions have been made because of them?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? 

No, it's just another fucking poll...

It is little wonder we don’t trust experts even when we lack the ability to make our own minds up, especially given that polls pull us one way then push us another. What I would really welcome is a proper investigation into this entire field; to what extent are polling activities impacting negatively on productivity, mental stability, national unity and harmony, etc? Because if, as I strongly suspect, polling is a big part of ‘the problem’ then the sooner it is exposed the better. Who’s with me?

Careful where you tread!

I had an idea for a tweet; in fact I was halfway through writing it when it suddenly occurred to me that some of my followers have gone a bit mental and might take it personally. And, yes, they would be correct that it was sort of personal, but it was just something I wanted to say. So I said it anyway, and I was right. Within a couple of minutes three of my long term followers popped up to tell me I was wrong.

Not misinformed, not behind the times, not possibly swayed by a vexatious narrative, but just plain wrong. And then, when I tried to suggest that maybe this was a matter of opinion, all three responded by insulting me and blocking. Okay, I admit the details here are truncated and modified a tad to suit my purpose, but who among you have not experience similar, in real life as well as online?

Twitter used to be quite good fun a lot of the time, tweeting out daft comments and photos of found idiocy from t’internet. And yes, on occasion organising a pile-on directed at pompous blue-ticks and their ridiculous sense of self-importance. And politics, of course, was often the source of great merriment and malice, banter and downright hostility. But the thing was, you always knew where you stood; you knew where the brickbats were going to come from and who would back you.

Things have changed, however, and you really do find some surprising, often startling disparities between what you imagined a person believed in and what they now seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker. We’ve all fallen for parody accounts of course and we’ve all, if we’re honest, tweeted out some most egregious tripe from time to time. We’ve innocently retweeted lies that fit our feelings, without bothering to check our facts.

But over the years I’d like to think most users of social media have become wise to those who attempt to lure us into a particular camp. Some of us – heaven forfend – have even conceded that ‘the other side’ may have a point, often to be regaled by accusations our accounts must have been hacked. And I know full-well that I have been guilty on more than one occasion of deliberately poking the bear by being contentious, frivolous or just downright rude. In fact I have been suspended many times for infringing rules I have wilfully overlooked, ‘for the craic’.

This last year, however, Twitter times have been fraught with peril and while I am still poking away there, I frequently delete rather than send because I have become dismayed at the way some people will find offence where none was intended. No wonder the three subjects thought unfit for the dinner table were politics, religion and money. But on those issues the traditional binary splits in opinion now look like kindergarten level debating points.

Today we have lefties for individual choice, Tories for state control, Covid deniers, lockdown advocates and free speech champions trying to shut people up. Where once you knew when you were on solid ground and preaching to the choir, there is no telling today when a chance remark, harmless in intent and aimed at nobody in particular, explodes into a full on slanging match and subsequent blockfest. To advise ‘think before you tweet’ is pointless; somebody, somewhere will find a way of making it personal. Just, tread carefully; it’s a minefield out there.

Believe it or not

If 2020 was the year of the conspiracy theory it was little different from most years, apart from the perfect storm of Brexit, Trump and ma-ma-ma-MY-Corona! But there is nothing new under the sun, so although lots of locked down idle hands embarked on dot-joining fantasies of the highest order, all they really did was take a few of the old myths and use them to create a Hollywood-style remake of the classics.

Examine the claims and watch a few of the YouTubes, read a selection of blog posts and immerse yourself in the gloriously crazy world of what are now referred to as memes and you will see all the old favourites there: Chemtrails, 9/11, Elders of Zion, the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan, Agenda21, the Barcelona Declaration, Paris, The Great Reset, the 5G conspiracy, critical race theory, flat earthers, Q-anon… and of course Covid (and many, many more).

There is a book called Plotto, by William Wallace Cook, originally published in 1928, which purports to contain the basics of every narrative structure you will need for your novel, play, or movie. It is a starting point for struggling fiction writers, bringing together characters and situations from which you can weave your literary masterpiece. It has oft been said that 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual, because you can read in that 70-year old book, astonishing parallels with what is happening today.

But, guess what, you could easily apply much of Orwell’s dark ‘prophecies’ in reverse to events which happened millennia ago. The Greek myths are filled with portents of doom, with mankind being manipulated by playful, fickle and sometimes evil gods. The only difference today are that the gods are no longer called Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon and Athena, but Bezos, Soros, Gates and Zuckerberg. Wait a minute; that last one – you don’t think he’s… Jewish, maybe? (See how easy this is?)

It would seem on the surface that it takes a great deal of denial of reality, of unquestioning credulity and an enormous effort to maintain the complex narrative of your typical convoluted conspiracy theory. That, in contrast, the simplicity of applying Occam’s Razor would seem so easy that almost nobody could be fooled into falling down the rabbit holes. But there must be something deep in the unconscious that prefers complexity to truth, that prefers a plotto to notto. And when you see this it all suddenly makes sense.

The Norse gods, the Egyptian idols, the fabulous manimals of Indian theology, the dreaming of Australia’s aboriginal people. Everywhere you look in history, from the original creation myths to the highly structured rituals of birth and death and the control hierarchies of the Catholic church, you can see the basics of every modern conspiracy myth. When Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup shouted “You can’t handle the truth!” he was shouting at all of us.

In our world nobody got fired just for being bad at their job, nobody got sick by sheer coincidence and no election was won simply by one side getting more actual votes than the other. We crave complexity; there has to be something more and, to be fair, life seems somehow more vibrant, more edgy, if behind every sleepy community some overlord pulls all the strings. Will 2021 be the year we wake from our own Dream Time, taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge and realise that what we've got is just what we see? I somehow doubt it.