The Gallimaufry of Modern Life

I learned a new word today (hint : it wasn’t “modern”).

This glorious word, which I’m going probably going to overuse (and misuse) from now on, means the following :

A confused jumble or medley of things

I spoke to the spare child (daughter number 2) last night in one of our sporadic catch-ups in which we attempt to de-construct the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

She’s had to suffer (yet another) of those “training” sessions at work where the whole panoply of the Cult of Wokentology¹ is forcibly rammed down people’s throats - these are sort of “do or DIE” sessions.

In this particular session one panellist argued that children need more exposure to gender ideology and queer stuff. Didn’t there use to be a word for that kind of thing? Can’t remember what it was, but I’m fairly certain it rhymed with blooming.

There’s a very definite expectation at her work place that everyone should be all gung-ho about whatever the latest social “justice” fad happens to be. All of it. Everything is just lapped up and spewed back out again. It’s like there’s a whole army of robotic dweebs out there who are told what to think and then proceed to dutifully think it.

Rowling? Practically Trump, or Hitler - but definitely not Mao coz he was one of the good guys, wasn’t he?

George Floyd? - more divine and worthy of worship than Jesus himself.

You get the picture.

But the overarching question that me and the spare couldn’t unravel, and it’s a question that motivates a good deal of my writing, is

when, and how, did things get this fucking weird?

Cast your minds back, if you will, just a mere decade ago. Did you ever think, back then, that we would have politicians and other luminaries being asked in media interviews whether some women have a penis?

A veritable gallimaufry of garbled gaga.

The whole question of whether women can have willies seems to have become a topic of serious ‘debate’, yet relatively few people seem to step back and think just how fucking weird it is to be having these conversations.

Me and the spare both like Helen Joyce and Matt Walsh who are having a bit of a spat at the moment. Matt blames feminism for the rise of the gender weirdness and Helen blames traditional views on gender roles as being partly responsible. We both think Helen is sometimes a bit too rad (fem) and Matt is sometimes a bit too trad (con) - but we recognise that both have very valuable insights and opinions to bring to bear on the issue. Somewhere in between the rad and the trad is going to be where I’d place my money.

Whether they are right or wrong about any of their individual perspectives is (almost) beside the point. The point is to thrash out these issues and provide everyone else with things to think about.

When did we stop thinking? The number of people who just seem to parrot the “current thing” is somewhat depressing. It’s like someone has directed them; here’s the opinion you must have today, and here’s the magic incantations you must use when expressing those opinions.

Transwomen are women

Diversity is our strength

All cops are bastards

And so on. There are many such magic incantations that are cast in all sorts of areas. The climate cult has its own set of incantations, the gender cult yet another set.

But underlying it all is my own personal sense of just how fucking weird everything has gotten.

We’ve taken the Age of Enlightenment, carved out its penis, emasculated it, and created some sort of Frankenstein’s monster that is probably best termed the Age of Engarblement.

What we’ve created is a grotesque gallimaufry - a clashing mosaic of different ‘body’ parts where nothing blends into a harmonious whole.

Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain why we’re living in the era of weird. It’s porn. It’s social media. It’s the lack of religion. It’s the loss of any real meaning to people’s lives.

Probably all of the above.

Porn, for example, is nothing to do with intimacy or commitment (quite the opposite) - and I suspect these words, if used at all these days, are seen as a little quaint and old-fashioned. It represents a visual stimulation designed to sell the idea of instant gratification. Porn used to be attacked on the basis that it objectified women. I think it objectifies both men and women and reduces what should be a very affirming and positive loving act to a rather crude grunting gallimaufry of hedonism².

Social media carries with it its own promotion of hedonism and instant gratification. The incessant quest for likes and content never lets us just relax and process stuff properly.

A viable hypothesis for the rise of the Cult of Wokentology is that people feel adrift and more bereft of meaning than previously. Attaching oneself to a “good” cause helps people to feel better about themselves - that gratification of feeling superior.

There are many examples of the weirdness. One I’ve mentioned before is the “academic” who, during an interview, said that maths was a tool of oppression because accounting had been used in the slave trade. It is genuinely hard to know how to respond to this kind of almost supreme moronicity. It’s so weird to me that this kind of obvious gaga is taken seriously.

It’s like half the human race (probably much less) is living in a kind of parallel universe.

You think that Jan 6th was the most dangerous threat to democracy since the Dominion voting machines accurately recorded your vote, or you think it was a legitimate and relatively benign protest. And ne’er the twain shall meet.

How did we get so blinkered, so polarized, and so fucking dumb (not to mention weird)? Trying to overthrow a legitimate election result is definitely not “good” for democracy, but what are you supposed to do when there are serious concerns about the legitimacy of that process? Who gets to decide what is, and isn’t, “legitimate”? There were, in my view, some very serious alarm bells indeed over the chaos of the 2020 US election. Was the result legitimate? Don’t know - but no sane person could look at the process and declare it to be without some serious and concerning flaws.

Perhaps the clue to the rise of weird and the resultant polarization between the weirdos and the fascists³ is in the instant gratification aspect. We’re just constantly bombarded with shit - from all directions. Climate, covid, Ukraine, digital currencies, diversity, gender, racism, colonialism, white supremacy, fascism - it’s a continual over-stimulation of our intellectual faculties and our intellectual capacities.

Everything is such a drama.

We rarely step back and just think - much less meditate or pray.

We’re adrift in the sea of weird and we’re not able to settle ourselves enough to be able to paddle back to shore.

We’ve become overly enamoured of ourselves, the continual dopamine hits of instant gratification have somewhat centred ourselves as the stars of our own dramas - we’re our own Gods struggling for dominance in a far from celestial domain. Anything which causes us discomfort, that disrupts that gratification, is seen to be an almost existential threat.

I’m no great philosopher and an even worse social philosopher, but it seems to me that living with others - either as a family or in a society - is about getting the balance right between individual freedom and shared responsibilities and duties. We can’t (and shouldn’t) compromise on everything, but isn’t being part of a functioning community all about recognizing that compromise is often necessary?

But compromise is kind of the opposite of gratification isn’t it?

We used to accept that people have different ideas. We’d have a bit of a barney over a few pints in the pub - and go home still the best of mates. This, it seems, is not possible these days. You’re either with me or you’re the next reincarnation of Hitler seems to be the prevailing attitude.

Being a devout follower of the “current thing” is taken to be evidence of one’s compassionate nature - and yet if you aren’t quite persuaded by the rightness of the current thing, and you express that publicly, you’ll be treated to a ferocious and savage assault on your morality in an inhumane display of tantrum-like behaviour that is anything but compassionate.

It’s just weird that you can’t express the slightest doubt about the exact nature of the undercarriages of women without coming under attack.

As Helen Joyce ruefully commented on recently, she’s sick of the word “penis”. But she has no choice but to continually talk about women’s penises these days.

If you’re one of those old-fashioned lesbians you’ll be castigated for having a genital fetish if you don’t fancy some entity with a dick. It’s a bit like describing someone who wants wheels on their car as having a wheel fetish.

Like I said - fucking weird.

Neither me nor the spare can properly work it out. And so I’ll close this gallimaufry of an article with the question

Do you think everything has just gone a bit doo-lally and, if so, why?

1. Thanks to the excellent Stephanie Brail for this terminology.

2. I did warn you I was probably going to overuse and misuse this word

3. If you don’t subscribe to all of the weird shit - you’re a fascist. Of course some women have penises. Are you Mussolini or something?