If you studied the history of philosophical thought, then you’d realise that someone has something original and worthwhile to say about every 50 years.
But some people on Twitter seem to believe that they have something philosophically profound to say every 50 seconds.
We’re all entitled to mould and perfect our own individual philosophies in life and I’m not undermining our freedom to share these with the world; but I am humoured beyond annoyance by the apparent presumption by so many that they are the thought-prophets of the new age.
As evidence for my claim, I will randomly browse Twitter now and report to you verbatim some of the 2-bit, fatuous and puerile philosophical utterances that I encounter. I may even be tempted to rip apart a few of them:
“Don’t change yourself for anybody but yourself… be happy with who you are!”
Well, I wouldn’t encourage your average rapist, paedophile or drug-dealer to adhere to that clichéd teaching.
“The world’s a playground. You know that when you’re a kid, but somewhere along the line everybody forgets it.”
So this arsehole wants us all to be irresponsibly hedonistic? In my playground at school there was bullying, casual racism and sexual harassment (I kicked Tracey O’Brien up the bum to show her I fancied her.)
“God is too good. I don’t care what ur going through right now! Tell him thank u :) “
Tweeted by some bloke showing off his six-pack. I’m not sure people from the over 30 stone obese and depressed fraternity would empathise, nor the one third of the world’s population living in poverty who this c**t doesn’t care about.
Now the thing is, the culprit of this last crass comment had 107,000 followers. Fuck me, Jesus only had 12 and look what happened as a result of that! Is there a danger that one of these tossers will become the fulcrum for a new world religion?
In truth, no. Because nowadays people care far more about what they have to say than for what others are saying. We talk (or write or text or tweet) with far more concentration and attention that we listen. If I’m wrong, then try to remember what the rest of this blog is about, you self-obsessed narcissist!
So, to briefly link this to the subject of education, which is my clothes peg for such random rants as these, we don’t teach the history of philosophy very often, but we do encourage independent thought. After all, teachers are generally upper-working class, reasonably educated converts to lower-middle-class liberalism with socialist pretensions, ashamed of our darker more conservative thoughts. It’s not like we have an agenda is it?
Ok, that’s rather cynical. We are broadly humanist and humanitarian, or well meaning at least and our tolerance allows students to form their own opinions. We deliberately leave a void for them to fill, which is better than the bad old days when organised religion and submissive obedience filled most corners of that philosophical hole.
I think we do “values” very well in schools and philosophies very badly. And so enters Big Brother to fill the void.
My favourite pieces of crass philosophy from Big Brother, universally shared by every housetwat ever to appear on this show since it began targeting the lowest common denominator in the viewing public are as follows:
“Be yourself. Be genuine. Don’t try to be something you’re not.”
“Say it like it is. Be honest. If you got a problem with someone, say it to their face. Don’t be nice to them one minute and slag them off behind their back the next. That’s two-faced.”
“I’m just saying my opinion. I have a right to express my opinion.”
I don’t think Big Brother is to blame for expounding this shit and encouraging our youth to adhere to such insular, vain and disharmonious values in life. These philosophies are the bastard children of society and the programme-makers have inadvertently chosen only disciples of this ego-religion with which to populate the house and propagate such crap.
To start tearing at the edges of these trite attitudes…
“Be yourself.” As a natural form of development, in the search for one’s own identity, teenagers will often try to be anything but themselves. We’ve all created personas for ourselves until we’ve found one or more that fit and realised that’s who we are. We’ve all wanted to be someone else, but most of us grow out of that by the time we are 20. Those who don’t, apply for Big Brother.
“Be honest… say it to their face.” Can you really imagine a world where we all say what goes through our heads? How upsetting would that be for people? Most of us think bad things about most people at least some of the time. But would we really advocate that students in schools tell the fat girl she’s fat, the smelly boy he stinks, the stupid kid that he’s thick as poo? Would we say to people that we find them annoying, selfish, thoughtless, lying, attention-seeking, sleazy, etc… etc… unless we really had to? Of course not. That’s hurtful and not always necessary, so out of respect for people’s feelings it is usually better to express these views out of earshot. That’s not being two-faced, it’s showing some thoughtfulness.
Maybe I am wrong and this attitude is confined to Big Brother, because they can all be caught out by not “saying it like it is to your face” when their gossiping is played back after eviction. In which case, then the show “is “ poisoning young viewers’ values rather than reflecting them.
Fianally, this shit about our right to express our opinion. Yes, we do have this freedom, but as normal the constraints on every freedom are ignored by some in this regard. This is when this apparent right or opinion also entitles us to the right to insult others:
“I think you are a wanker. I’m not being rude, I’m just telling you my opinion.”
No, you’re being rude. And in some cases, your opinion could be racist, sexist or downright depraved. Let’s not let people grow up believing they can express “any” opinion please!
To end, going back to philosophy, I shall dip back into twitter and share with you one more example of bullshit:
I found this within a minute. A certain person, sadly indicative of his stereotype, in one tweet preached to us that it makes no sense “the way men downgrade women and don’t recognise a woman’s worth.” In his very next tweet he say he “tucks every female follower in, while kissing them softly on the forehead.”
Sleazy arsehole.
Goodbye.
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