Month: July 2019

Fighting, Fucking and Foraging

28th July 2019 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

The problem with being a cis straight white man is only being allowed to have authoritative opinions on cis straight white man things. Or more accurately the expertise I have on everything, due to being a cis straight white man, is no longer valued by society. The PC hegemony has relegated me from first place in society to a slightly different version of first place in society. It’s a dreadful waste of my talents. I know just enough about absolutely everything to have an opinion on absolutely everything. And the confidence to inform all of that opinion. I can even use ‘hegemony’ in a sentence. But no, the illiberal war on mansplaining—what was once called civilisation— means I have to hold my tongue. The dreadful penalty for transgressing this new shibboleth? There may be eye-rolling, head shaking and even the occasional look of disappointment on a friend’s face.

I’m expected, nay threatened with many rolling eyes, to confine the expression of my genius to cis straight white man things. This is not only frustrating, it is immensely boring. So very boring. It is boring because keeping my opinions to cis straight white man things alone, is the entirety of the cis straight white man’s burden.

Instead of historical oppression, I have not getting the ride as much as I’d like. Instead of finding solidarity in resisting oppression, I have why don’t people fear me like they used to? Even then, as I’m old, riding is a fun activity which is better imagined than practised. And I’m oblivious to other people so I don’t notice the lack of fear.

This oppressive thwarting of a cis straight white man’s inherent genius has consequences. The time you are wasting reading this is but one of them. Others include, hating the wrong people. And that’s about it really. But taking away the expectation that we’ll always be the most important person in any given situation will provoke a backlash.

No one, who isn’t a cis straight white man, can comprehend what it is like to be under the thumb of those rolling eyes. No one, who isn’t a cis straight white man, can know what it is to be a victim of consequence free disapproval. It’s dreadful. You are now reaping the fruit of our enraged resistance to this slight discomfort. This is war. And war is what we excel at. Well, we excel at everything, but we really excel at war. It’s like we invented it or something.

And what’s the first rule of war? There isn’t one, but as a cis straight white man if I say something with confidence it becomes the truth. For the purposes of this point, the first rule of war is making ersatz copies of the enemy’s weapons. In this case, their language.

Oh yes, the resistance has become au fait with terms like; marginalised, identity, no one wants my dick, solidarity, no really not a single person wants my dick, misandry, it’s not even a joke anymore my dick is simply dying of boredom, reverse sexism, reverse racism, it can’t be my fault so it must be the fault of every woman on the planet and triggering. And while it’s fun to speak among ourselves (for a while) about non sport things, the whole point of our existence is to be living our best lives, oblivious to the price everyone else pays. So we have to deploy these terms.

We men, we band of straight white brothers, are lost. We were grand with being oppressed and abused by our brothers. We would cope by directing our rage and inadequacy onto anyone who wasn’t a cis straight white man. We could punch down and punch down and keep punching down until we didn’t feel entirely powerless. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it worked. For us.

Then those who were being punched began punching back. And those punches landed. We had to begin watching our manners. Because our brothers who oppress us have sided with those we’d been lording it over. There’s money in it you see.

Now I know what you’re thinking; why don’t we make common cause with those we’d been abusing, against the brothers who oppress everyone? Take on those who destroy our jobs and even the illusion of dignity that kept us in our places? And I say to that, fuck off you commie nerd. Don’t you oppress me. Thor is a man, a straight white man, and always has been.

Cis straight white men were designed for fucking, fighting and foraging. And of course, being in charge. We do not have the capacity for not being in charge. Or the inclination to change. That’s science that is. We cis straight white men will, from now on, actively seek to distort reality in the pursuit of our mythic rights. We do this in self-serving tribute to our dead brothers. The cis straight white men we didn’t support, don’t care about and secretly despise. For they represent the change we refuse to embrace.

Too Much Ideology

20th July 2019 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

I want to write about ideology but I have to begin with Dessie O’Malley. I divide all politicians into two groups. The first group are politicians I like, respect, admire and trust. The second group are all politicians who aren’t Dessie O’Malley. I subdivide the not Dessie O’Malley politicians into two further groups. Those groups are; politicians who I think are in politics to make people’s lives better as opposed to those I judge to be on the make. Now, I further divide the politicians who are not on the make into two groups. Those I agree with. And those I don’t. The group on the make also constitute two groups. Politicians who are ideologues first, people second. And those who are in the politics game for pure self-interest.

I’m not comfortable about how high the pedestal I’ve constructed for Dessie O’Malley is. His legacy is mixed to say the least. And I’m left asking myself if I was an economic conservative first or was I an O’Malley man first? I don’t know.

Saying I was once an economic conservative will immediately turn a lot of people off. And I don’t mean people who disagree with (even vehemently oppose) economic conservatism. What I mean is, most people don’t use terms like economic conservatism to describe their voting intentions. It’s a term used and understood only by nerds and weirdos.

In the 80s and 90s economic conservatism made absolute sense to me. Like my parents and their parents, I was growing up in a country that was an economic embarrassment. High taxes, high unemployment, high emigration and zero hope for improvement, as it was in the 50s, the 30s and the 20s. Freeing the population from the yoke of stultifying and incompetent politicians made perfect sense. Trusting people to improve their lot once the weight of misspent taxes was taken off their backs was the obvious and best choice. And the thing is, it worked. Until it didn’t.

Turns out that people are as base and incompetent as politicians. Instead of the State misspending our taxes, we misspent the taxes we didn’t have to pay, even worse. Now the State is over 200 billion in debt. The application of a bit of ideology can be a dangerous thing.

With the destruction of the economy I had a choice to make, learn or double down. I put off making that choice by joining Fine Gael. The Progressive Democrats, the party of Dessie O’Malley, had quite rightly wound itself up due to its role in the latest economic disaster. FG has a similar ideological outlook to the PDs, though not as marked. More importantly they aren’t Fianna Fáil. A party which was the senior partner in every government that destroyed the economy. And for those people unfamiliar with Irish politics, recent polling has FF as the most popular party in the country. People amaze me.

Eventually I had to learn. I’m not a fan of learning. Learning requires uncertainty. I really don’t like uncertainty. Uncertainty means pausing to consider, before making a choice. I don’t like pausing or considering before making a decision. And I especially don’t like the effort involved in all these steps. But I did have to learn.

I had to let go of my low tax and small state idealism. It had been proven not to work. And not just here. Worldwide, while poverty continues to fall, here in the West ever more wealth is being created but being concentrated in fewer hands. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, children will end up poorer than their parents. Mostly because profit is now being sweated from other profit rather than from things.

I finally understand, and it only took me a few decades, economic conservatism is not an ideology that promotes individual freedom. It is an ideology of profit before all else. And by before all else I mean basic human decency.

FG, a party I’ve a certain affection for and regard as minimally corrupt, is a party of economic conservatism. A party that puts ideology before humanity. The examples of this lack of humanity are myriad.

One can’t but begin with the housing crisis. More accurately, this is two inextricably linked crises, homelessness and affordability. The solution to both is the same. Simply build more homes. Take all the subsidies and tax breaks that are funnelling cash into the pockets of landlords, and instead build homes. Choosing to leave this social need in the hands of the private sector says two things; people aren’t worth helping, but if pushed we’ll help as long as this misery can be monetised.

The ongoing fiasco in our health system also falls under the category of ideology before people. My private health insurance means I get the skip ahead of those without health insurance. And these aren’t minor shortcuts I’ve bought with my insurance. The people I’m skipping can be waiting years for something I have only to wait weeks for. Am I a hypocrite for slamming a system I benefit from? Damn right I am. I will always put my health before yours. I am not an ideologue. Poorer people die years younger than those with money. Think on that, a system which condemns the poor to early death. Today two new hospitals are being built in Dublin. Both will cater to private practitioners.

Our pathetic response to the global refugee crisis provides another example. People fleeing war and oppression end up in the Direct Provision system for years. The conditions within these centres are wholly inadequate. This should shame us all. Yet they are profit making. Companies are profiting from refugees. I’ll say that again, companies are profiting from refugees.

I don’t think this government is packed with innately bad people. I wish it were that simple. What our government is packed with are ideologues. The type of ideologue I once was. They are socially progressive, sort of. They don’t see why the State should say who can and can’t get married. Nor what a woman should be allowed to do with her own body, within reason. Well, within their definition of reason. But it’s also an ideology that doesn’t see the State as responsible or even capable of solving problems someone else should solve. And solve for profit. Putting ideology before people is not confined to Fine Gael. But they are getting to see their ideology made manifest.

It’s just a pity they forgot they gained power because the exact same ideology they espouse had already run the nation off a cliff.

Milkshake Brings All The Centrist Dads To The Yard

13th July 2019 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Image by Dean Norris from Pixabay

I share some, if not many, characteristics of Twitter’s, centrist dad. I’m certainly the right age. Young people annoy me so much I don’t have children. But you better treat me like your dad because I have all the answers. I’m continually surprised by people not coming to me for all the answers I obviously own. I suffer crippling bouts of nostalgia. I dislike extremism in all its forms. I retain the exclusive right to define what extremism is. And did I mention an aversion to weaponised milkshakes? Perhaps I am an actual centrist dad. Well that’s a surprise.

I remember my reaction the first time Twitter informed me milkshake had been thrown as a political protest. I remember that reaction because I experience the same visceral dismay every time it has happened since. It’s a dismay filled with, ‘you could have an eye out,’ ‘violence never solves anything,’ ‘why can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘use your words not your fists.’

But being a centrist dad is more than proffering unasked for disapproval. There’s the whole Hitler thing. We don’t love him. We’d never say that. Snazzy uniforms we’ll cop to, but we don’t love him. He certainly lived his best life, didn’t he though? How can one not be impressed by the breadth of his canvass? If you take away all the bad things he did, would he not be considered a man worthy of admiration? Oops, I’m getting away from my point. We don’t love him. He went too far. We can all agree with that.

Initiating a two front war and declaring war on the US in 1941 were obviously his biggest mistakes. Not withdrawing from Stalingrad, when he had the chance, didn’t help either. He was so close to Moscow. So very close. Damn, losing my train of thought again.

There are only so many WWII books a centrist dad can read before being exposed to the fact Hitler existed before WWII. The pure weight of words forces us to consider delving into the prequel bits. It’s an onerous task. For one thing, the uniforms go from black to brown. Yeah, brown. Awful.

It’s boring, but we persevere. Next time we’re in the pub arguing about who knows more about Hitler, we can slip in the fact his party peaked at 37%. Then wrangled supreme power, with the connivance of the conservative elite and the Army General Staff, from an election where he only managed to get 37% of the vote.

That’ll show them who the real devotee is. Not so sure about mentioning the Brown Shirts though. Brown is a horrible colour. And anyway, Hitler killed them off once they’d achieved what he’d wanted. What? What did they achieve? Well, I’m embarrassed to say really. Wouldn’t you prefer we discuss why Hitler halted the panzer advance towards Dunkirk for three whole days? No? Okay. The Brown Shirts beat, tortured and murdered every far left opponent Hitler had in Germany. They attacked the unions and minorities. Organised boycotts of Jewish businesses. And effectively gave Hitler control of the streets long before the conservatives invited him into their sheets.

Yeah, apparently if you leave fascists to their own devices, they’ll spread like a vicious shit plague. They’ll take over our streets and subvert democracy to the point where it simply gives up. It’s as if fascism isn’t like a normal ideology, with normal followers. What it is, is a death cult. It can only be beaten with fire and then salt. And perhaps milkshake. But I’m a centrist dad. I’ll be okay whatever happens.

The Stupid

6th July 2019 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Image by mollyroselee from Pixabay

Do you ever marvel at the resurgence of stupid? Is it a resurgence? It feels like stupid is more prevalent today than it has been at any time in my life. Okay, stupid may always have been there it’s just now amplified by the internet. Does it matter if it has always been there or if it was created by the internet? It probably matters. Yeah, the why matters. As does understanding the full impact of its thuggish confidence.

While the stupid is real, it’s important to remember our species is very smart. Like send a person to the moon smart. Though not so smart that a great many people strived ridiculously hard to be strapped to the top of a giant bomb so they could be blasted into space. Our smart is a particular type of smart.

We left the trees about six million years ago. We’re so smart that we can even debate the appropriateness of the word ‘we’ that I used to describe our tree dwelling ancestors. But I’m not gonna.

Six million years ago and quick as a flash, some six million years later, give or take 200,000 years, our type of human appears. And then, another 100,000 years passed, and then another 30,000 years and then the big smart brain we like to boast about appeared. So awesome a brain, not a single other human species survived it. We should be very proud of ourselves. I think.

Another 60,000 years passed before we worked out farming. And then, approximately one wet week ago, we realised we’d left the trees. And many people are very pissed at that. Their gloriously huge brains couldn’t compute, so they’ve shut the fuck down.

That six-million-year journey did not prepare us for 10,000 years ago when we began to live in villages, towns and cities. And it certainly didn’t prepare us for the 1990s and the internet when we suddenly had access to everyone and everything. Our smart brains are still hardwired for living in small clans.

The invention of religion got us through the living in cities. It kept enough of us in our places so civilisation could happen. Ten millennia later, most of us still cling to religion but have accepted science as our real guide. But our brains are still all about the small group. Who has our back? Who is taking the piss? Which berries are in season? Who here is up for a hunt? How do I get through tomorrow?

Scientists (or in the modern vernacular, so-called experts) believe our brains peeked before civilisation. Carrying your world on your back and in your hands, while navigating a hostile environment means you have to be smart. None of us are descended from the dumbest of those clans. Surviving in the wild today is so ridiculous an endeavour it can get you a lucrative TV deal. But more important than the skills were the social ties. That clan had to function at close to 100% efficiency all the time. Your life and opportunity to reproduce depended on how close knit the clan was.

Getting on to get along did not require the scientific method or scepticism. It meant getting on was dialled up to eleven. And we rocked it. The other human species, large prey, climate and distance were all conquered. We literally conquered the planet. In our little clans. Using complex language. Because getting on means one has to communicate deep, not logically.

For example, have you ever had an argument with a housemate or partner about household chores? Has the scientific method ever proven useful in that discussion? Or was the discussion more about feelings, and an attempt to create and communicate clan norms to protect those feelings? Norms that would make the clan work more efficiently. It is an exercise in emotion and vast verbiage. All for the clan. All for your feelings. All about our place within the clan.

That is how our brains work. It’s why the scientific method is a method. It doesn’t come naturally, so we have to build in a series of fail-safes so our enormous brains don’t take shortcuts to the answers we want. It’s why the scientific method, verifiable facts and the so-called experts continue to make our lives safer and longer. And that’s why our clannish brains are so ill-prepared to deal with the scientific method, verifiable facts and the so-called experts. It’s why we still have religions. It’s why we still have nationalism, racism and anti-vaxxers. It’s why the stupid appears so prevalent in what should be a scientific age.

Which is all well and good I suppose, but it won’t shift a single Boris Johnson fan away from his band of stupid or save a single child from needless illness and death. But it does help me avoid wasted effort arguing with the unreachable. That’s something.

Simple Solutions

1st July 2019 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

I’ll tell you a secret. I once knew how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I know, amazing. I should be a lot more famous than I am. But I didn’t reveal my solution. I assumed my insight was so blindingly obvious it’d be considered a tad gauche to voice it. As it turned out, my resolution would no longer work. It may also not have worked at the time but I’m not totally convinced it wouldn’t.

My cure for that poisonous situation was simple. All that was required was for both Israel and Palestine to join the EU. I know. I know. It’s an obvious fix but no one ever seems to mention it. I can’t figure out why. I thought the moment the Good Friday Agreement was signed all eyes would turn to the Middle East silently indicating; your turn now.

Perhaps it’s the genius of the Good Friday Agreement that so few understand just how simple it was. There was a great deal of complexity in the lead up and it does smack of temporary, but it worked. It works by doing this; it allows both sides to stop killing each other for a bit. But it doesn’t solve what is an unsolvable problem.

The conflict in Northern Ireland is unsolvable. No one should forget that. Two groups that identify as fundamentally different, two groups who claim ownership of the same piece of land, two people who think they are right and therefore the other is wrong. Take away the egregious governing, take away the partisan policing and pump billions of euro into the economy, the fact remains these are two people who wish for wildly divergent destinies.

The Good Friday Agreement manages to give both sides a huge amount of what they want, even if what they are given is contradictory. If you identify as Irish, here’s an Irish passport. Border? What border? If you identify as British. Here’s a British passport. And yes, you’re still part of the UK. Northern Ireland is expected to govern itself to a certain extent. A whole lot of politicians are paid a lot of money to govern, but with no consequences for choosing not to govern. When they don’t manage the UK government will do it, from afar, while trying not to emulate its previous centuries of vicious misrule of this island.

Simple, imaginative and dare I say elegant. Two fictions facilitated. Two exclusive identities accommodated. Only possibly because the UK and Ireland had pooled their sovereignty within the EU. Equal partners within a structure whose laws superseded their own. A bigger identity. An identity so big that different sorts of Irish and different sorts of British could become small enough not to matter too much.

How could Israel and Palestine not find a peace within that community? Once a border becomes irrelevant it’s difficult to find the energy to murder in that border’s name.

It looks like that opportunity has now passed. Even among those on the UK mainland who understand that Ireland and Northern Ireland are distinct political entities, one being part of the UK and the other wholly independent, there is no understanding of the border. No understanding that the moment it becomes visible the fiction of parallel identities is gone.

And I’m not saying the uneducated and ignorant UK citizens who caused this unnecessary crisis did so by being uneducated and ignorant. No, that’s only one part of it. The other part is that identity in the English part of the UK is now beginning to assert itself. And like the slumbering pig it is, there is not a fuck it can give about shaking the shit off its hide on all and sundry.

If only this return to identity was confined to England. Unfortunately, all over the EU, the nonsense that perfected mass murder is returning because everyone appears to have forgotten what that nonsense was and what it did. It’s like we’ve decided to replace our real history with the bullshit that caused the worst of our history. My great idea won’t work anymore. But there was a moment, in our recent history, where it just might have worked.