Tag: modern myths

The Real Conspiracy

Hang on to your bonnet, baby, because I’ve uncovered a massive international conspiracy.  Unfortunately, I’m such a total coward I’m too scared to name names, but I have evidence that powerful covert forces are at work — even as we speak.  These shadowy figures are grimly determined to totally suck the joy out of every aspect of human life!  Their nefarious goal is to turn every one of us into miserable Neo-Puritans, just as riddled with guilt and apprehension as they are.  And the problem is it looks as if they’re succeeding.  Check it out:

Remember when holidays were a time to take a moment, have some fun, relax and recharge the batteries?  Buckle up ’cause those days are over.  These days, holidays are a battleground.  Look at Hallowe’en!  Every costume comes with a ferocious debate.  Columbus Day?  Chris would have been better off sailing the other way.  Valentine’s Day is a minefield of who got missed in the sexual orientation parade, and Christmas?  Just forget it — between the Christmas-is-too-commercial crew and the anti-Christian lobby, even Santa Claus has tossed in the towel.  No, special occasions are a good time to keep your head down, and, just to be on the safe side, lie about your birthday on Facebook.
Celebrations?  Gone!

Have you ever wondered what happened to junk food?  Think about it!  One minute we’re chowin’ down on cheeseburgers, fries and a Coke, happy as clams. The next thing we know, it’s all 90 calorie, gluten-free, low sodium, Tai Chi chicken and kale salad.  Whoa!  The point of junk food is … it’s junk!  It’s supposed to be bad for you!  Going to McDonald’s for a salad is like going to a hooker (Oops! sex-worker) for a hug — why bother?
Junk Food?  Not gone — but smothered in guilt.

Did you know there are historical records which categorically prove that sex is supposed to be messy?  That’s right!  It involves all manner of mouth-breathing, involuntary twitches and tensions, grinding, groaning, gripping and sticky stuff.  Orgasm, for most of human existence, was a noun not a verb (the verb was a lot more folksy) and for thousands of millennia, humans had body hair — and it wasn’t icky.   The antiseptic procedures most people practice these days are designed to tear the soul out of sex and make it just one more hyper-allergenic reward challenge of “the relationship.”
The Joy of Sex?  Replaced by I’m not sure what. . . .

And we all know what “relationships” are — they’re the long-winded workaholics idea of love slowly drowning in an ocean of issues and dialogue — until finally, totally fed up, even the dog runs away from home.
Love?  Dissolved away like sugar in the rain.

It was the original Puritans who banned Christmas, discouraged poetry, art and music.  They also got rid of theatre, dance and comedy.  They believed that life was a grim business and that they knew what was best for everybody.  Our contemporary puritans are a lot sneakier but just as grim — and just as certain of their own infallibility.  They’re definitely dedicated to stomping out fun, excitement and humour.  They scare the hell out of me and I tend to keep a low profile whenever they’re around.

However, on a totally unrelated matter (nudge/nudge – wink/wink) have you ever noticed that the people on BOTH ends of the Woke/Unwoke spectrum look remarkably the same and never smile?

You’re NOT Entitled To Your Opinion (2016)

opinionWow!  Through the magic of the Internet, you don’t know it, but I’m not here.  I’m actually far away from any WiFi, in Italy, writing novels (novel — singular.)  However, I’ve reworked a few old pieces to entertain you while I’m gone — mostly so you don’t get bored and forget about me.  This is some of “The Best Of WD: 2011,”  but keep in mind I used to be a lot bitchier back then.  Anyway, enjoy — and when I get back I’ll tell you all about it.  Ciao, for now!

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One of the most enduring myths of our time is “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.”  People tend to believe this ’cause it’s been repeated so many times and, like most egalitarian nonsense, it kinda sounds good.  Unfortunately, it’s a myth.  In fact, it’s an out-and-out lie.  The problem is that tons of people think it’s actually true.  They believe that every two-bit opinion deserves centre stage.  They’re the folks who are constantly traveling on the Stupid Train and then telling the rest of us all about the journey.  This kind of thinking has caused no end of problems in our society.  So, for everybody’s benefit, let’s just take a moment to shoot this myth in the head and bury it in the backyard.

The whole thing started when a bunch of academics who weren’t all that bright, got confused.  They made the mistake of thinking “created” equal actually meant “equal.”  This is another myth for another time, so here’s the Twitter version.  Alex Ovechkin is a better ice hockey player than I am; therefore, we are not equals.  Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney is a better writer than I am; therefore, we are not equals.  (This goes on and on, but you get the idea.)  We have equal rights, equal opportunity, we’re equal before the law etc. etc. etc. — but we are not actually equal.  Opinions work the same way.

For example, it is my opinion that penguins are green.  Everybody knows that the only people who can legitimately make this claim are allegorical artists and people who have just eaten most of their crayons.  However, this is my opinion.  I offer no evidence to support my claim.  I’m not a zoologist.  I don’t live in Antarctica.  I’ve only seen black and white penguins a couple of times.  Regardless, it’s my opinion that penguins are green.  Why — under any circumstances known to me, man or penguin — am I entitled to this opinion?  Just because?  What rational, reasonable (Hell — unreasonable) argument can anybody put forth to support this as a valid opinion?

The problem is nobody distinguishes between opinion and informed opinion anymore.  The greatest minds of our time are being lumped in with rock stars and actors.  I’m not saying celebrities are stupid, but honestly, the ability to cry on cue isn’t the kind of talent we need driving our decision-making process.  There’s a huge misconception that if Hollywood’s flavour of the week comes up with some homemade theory of economic development, it’s just as good as the experts’ at the University of Chicago.  It’s not.  It’s like asking the kid who makes your cappuccino every morning how to run a successful coffee plantation.  He’s probably a nice guy, but nobody but an idiot would take his advice on anything beyond low fat or decaf.  Yet, as a society, we continue to treat Bon Jovi, Sir Bob Geldof, Russell Brand, ad infinitum as if they know what they’re doing.  Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Of course, all this is just my opinion.

The Modern Myth Parade — Part 3

Despite our agnostic protests to the contrary, we contemporary North Americans are controlled by our mythologies.  Like our ancient Greek ancestors, we honour our gods and believe they rule our lives.  The problem is our myths don’t work.  In fact, they actually have an uncanny ability of getting in the way.  For example, because we believe in a benevolent planet where all reasonable people think and act just like we do, when that literally never happens, we feel our world is chaotic, disjointed, out of step and out of control.  This confuses us, but rather than questioning our myths, we reason that somehow we just haven’t been faithful to them and now the gods are angry.  So, like all primitive peoples, we try harder to please our gods, sacrificing our common sense on the altar of appeasement.  To butcher Shakespeare: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.”  Thus, when people act in ways contrary to the wishes of our myths, we look for something or someone to blame.

Here’s the deal.  When Eddie, the local villain, breaks into our house and steals the iPod, iPad, iPhone and every other iSomething that isn’t nailed down, we want an explanation.  We want to know why, in a benevolent world, this could happen to us; how Eddie, another reasonable human being, got thrown so far off the tracks?  We wonder why our society has failed us, Eddie and the prescriptions of our mythologies.  When we don’t get any answers, we feel angry and frustrated.

Unfortunately, the answers are exactly what we don’t want to hear.

First of all, we do not live in a benevolent world.  There are people out there who actively want to do us harm.  Open your eyes!  The evidence is all around us.  We can ignore it if we choose, but that doesn’t alter the facts.  Secondly, under normal circumstances, people are not reasonable.  It’s only the constraints of our society that make them so. You don’t have to be Charlie Marlow to understand that the tapestry of our world is woven of very thin yarn which breaks easily and unravels quickly.  Finally, there are people all around us who don’t give a damn about the high-minded expectations we have for ourselves.  They don’t care that we believe we’re good people.  And this brings us to our final and most dangerous myth.

We believe that our mythology itself makes us morally superior.  Now, before you relax and think, “Finally!  I knew it.  We’re all racist jerks!” think again.  I’m not talking about racism.  Actually, racism, in North America, is just a silly little word game we play with each other when the media gets bored.  Compared to the tribes of Europe, Asia and Africa, we can take the Pepsi Challenge on racism any time –and come off looking good.  No, our belief in our moral superiority has nothing to do with anyone else.  It rests solely on the mistaken idea that our society has transcended its savage past.  We believe so thoroughly in our inner goodness that any storm cloud in our Neverneverland world is cause for alarm.  And that is precisely why we refuse to question our mythologies.

The truth is that if we do not live in a benevolent world where everybody is reasonable, then we are not the good people we think we are.  We’re just techno-Visigoths, struggling to survive, and nobody wants to be a barbarian.  Thus, when bad things happen, we think we haven’t been compassionate enough, or empathic enough, or reasonable enough.  We go back to our false gods, pray for forgiveness and redouble our efforts to appease them. Thus, the dysfunctional cycle begins again.

It boils down to this.  Either we quit sacrificing the way of life that got us here to a bunch of mythologies– and try to solve the reality of our problems, face-to-face– or our mythologies are going to kill our society dead as disco.  It’s that simple.