Materialism.

A dirty word according to most hippies and lefties, just like `capitalist` apparently means something akin to `neo-nazi` if you listen to most university students and all these self-proclaimed `Liberals` who have nothing in common with the working classes (notable in the fact that hardly any of them ever do any work!) yet are willing to champion the rights of just such a group from the comfort of their city apartments or their family's second homes. Such is the focus of my irritation today, which I will now vent:

The pseudo-hippy, pseudo-liberal, pseudo-intellectual student `elite`, that made up far too much of the demographic when I was living in and around a university, grated against my very being in a way I couldn't properly describe, although I could readily identify the symptoms: they (typical students) say how awful poverty and famine is in 3rd world countries but eat from McDonalds and consume Nestle's products by the wheelbarrowfull; then they shun Nestle and McDonalds and tell everyone else to do the same but from the other side of their mouth eat from BurgerKing, and use Proctor & Gamble's washing detergent (all the while denouncing animal testing and vivisection from the rooftops); they then might even become Vegetarian, or even Vegan, and shun Proctor and Gamble, all fast food outlets known to mankind and pretty much every pharmaceutical company and product in the world, BUT, when they go on holiday they might well go to Africa on a tourist-tastic trip from Thomas Cook; which funds whatever mildly corrupt government of whatever mildly corrupt country they visit; but the thing that really hacks me off is that they happily go to their GP beforehand and cheerfully accept numerous vaccinations and inoculations that, and I guarantee this 101 bloody percent, were absolutely tested on poor innocent lickle bunny wabbits in vivisection labs all across the country.

You can't do it to save the lives of African kids, but please, by all means feel free to do it so I can safely visit their hometown to ponce around like Lord Muck, all the while looking the bloody *picture* of health, while whole native families lie dying in a tent in some godforsaken Red Cross camp.

What??

There are so many things that are done in the name of Morality by those who just haven't thought things through: ever known a vegetarian who wears leather or eats fish? Yup, about a hundred of them here, too.

A member of Amnesty International who wouldn't allow a mass-murdering terrorist be kept in sensory deprivation (i.e. the politically just-about-acceptable form of torture) in order to extract information that could save thousands of people be killed and tortured (in far more horrible ways) themselves? Amnesty International really irritate me in fact and not because of a principal I have (I really dont have those pesky things) but because it genuinely is a fantastic idea in principle, but those principles have been extended and generically applied in situations where a better decision could have been made by not having to believe in something like a principal.

Ever spoken to a university student who could talk about how bad racist people are, but also has views about immigration like those of the BNP? All dressed up in `they come here illegally and were all going downhill because of it` but basically they are just threatened by the black man, or the slightyl tanned man, or whatever when the simple truth is tat people want a better life and who the hell are we to argue? We all want better lives and we've never been forced to live in anywhere near as dreadful conditons that most asylum seeker/illegal immigrants/migrant workers/whateveryouwannacallthem have!

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But this is all just so much politics, and as such totally fails to get to the heart of the issue.

Speaking of which I have a digression (what, really?? Never!!! ) - Politics is a word that very likely derives from the same place as the word `polite` - likely either a derivation and reference to large conurbations & centres of commerce i.e; towns/cities/population centres; due to the part of it shared by words like `cosmopolitan` and `metropolis` which have intrinsically connected definitions, or it is to do with the modern meaning i.e: manners, diplomacy, tact, and ultimately not saying what is on your mind in an attempt not to offend the other guy, who may or may not (its up to him) wield huge amounts of power against you and your cronies.

Imagine, if you will, a diplomatic liason between ambassadors of competing global powers where the powers involved are huge and the figureheads doing business are indeed capable of wielding them as mentioned before, and, most importantly, could do so out of sheer bloodymindedness if you tell them the actual TRUTH of your impressions while meeting with him, vis; That he might be an overbearing buffoon with the sense and sensibilities of a dead earthworm, that he might be wearing a truly abominable ensemble of clothing that is only surpassed in horridness by his appalling manners, and in turn only exceeded in egregiousness by his truly dreadful wife.

I mean it wouldn't be polite to do that, would it? Even if it were true

Such is the nature of politics, and this is why I distrust anyone who speaks like a politician and avoids detailing the truth (or even making a passing reference, in most cases), especially when most of them do it for the sake of their own public approval rating.

Digression over For the time being.

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See, I'm not a real hippy. I know the situation in Africa is totally bone, to put it mildly indeed, but to be honest if I were in charge of things to the point of having total control (and 2000 billion tones of rocket fuel to spare) I might just jettison all the dense population centres in the war-torn countires into space and let the poor souls thereon rest in peace. And various other dubious moral choices I could make would indeed hurt lots of people, but would be for the greater good of all the rest of us in the end.

I mean, I don't even believe in the greater good the whole time, I believe in making the best choice as they turn up based on the best information available, one by one, because once you have a rigid philosophy of what you should or shouldn't do based on some morals that were prescribed, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, then when something comes from left-field that doesn't fit the rules you've made yourself live by you could find yourself forced into making totally the wrong choice.

And this rigid structure applies also rather well to religion, incidentally, but that's another kettle of fish for another evening

What doesn't work in some cases may work in others though and where the idea of a `moral choice` comes in to play there is often a lot of oversight of new and critical information, and things are done in the name of Moral Choice where perhaps things should be done in the name of The Right Thing: On Aggregate. The rigid idea of beliefs that force people to choose wrongly is only more annoying when you consider the shocking congruency of those dodgy studenty decisions when compared to the failings of some belief structures. For example if the Catholic church has a problem with foster homes being run by gay couples (which they do, hugely so) then they would have care kids in innefficient and counterproductive homes (and thats putting it pretty mildly) while at the same time professing to be the most caring bunch of bastards on the planet - hypocrisy all caused by a belief that gay people aren't real people, and are against the will of god.

Now, this will appall even the liberal students but they will fail to see that their use and abuse of privileges afforded to them by the contradiction of these morals they think they have is just as bad, because they have made a Moral Choice based on incomplete information and a lack of intelligent thought, and when you point it out they will certainly feel bad, but will still do it anyway and just reconcile themselves with the fact that "They are at least Doing Something" and get on with their lives still believing that they have good and true morals. I mean yes its a step in the right direction but it actuallu contradicts everything they think they stand for, and when confronted with this they will still pretend to be virtuous and morally perfect!!

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The African situation (in the general negative terms of poverty, AIDS, civil war etc) is just one simple and important example of a] how and why stupid uni students with delusions of morality really p*ss me off, b] why belief structures are often a real dumb f**king idea and the fact that so many people place so much importance in them really p**ses me off, and c] how greedy poopies with no regard for anyone but themselves are willing to inflict mass misery and death on their own countrymen and women, in order to have the power to, pretty much, inflict mass misery and death upon their countrymen and women. Which can hardly fail to ###### anyone off!!

But I'm not gonna pretend to actually do anything about it.

You see, we could all do so much about the state of the world but we, like the mass-murdering dictators of this world, choose to service our own ends and, while we don't do much that's bad in itself, we do allow atrocities to take place all over the world every second of the day.

Its just that we blatantly (subconsciously at least, hence a lot of the undirected angst and guilt in the world) forget about it when it is convenient i.e. almost all of the time; and when we do remember we again "forget" to remember that we are sitting on our arses in our nice Westernised first-world countries not saying anything publicly about beheadings in Syria, not screaming barely-coherent rage against the genocidal governments of Central Africa, not marching on the embassies of the countries where this horror is taking place, not quitting our jobs and going on peace missions to the harsh places of the world to minister to the sick and dying – we all choose not to do that but we know its is going on, and if the roles were reversed and we knew all about England with its easy lifestyles, massively rewarding government (arts councils, public libraries, schools for every child, benefits system, and even, at worst, even just a semblance of a working national health service) and especially with its almost-non-existent gangs of state-sanctioned murdering rapists, then we'd be pretty jealous and ###### off at us, too.

And people wonder why there is an immigration problem!! As if it wasn't bad enough that there are atrocities out there to be running from, the simple economic splendour of a country like the UK is tempting enough when the richest person you've ever met in your life may have owned a couple of cars, once. You see what I mean? I'm not even gonna touch the immigration issue in depth here today but it's another good indicator of how we choose to be selectively moral and that we choose to say one thing and then do a dozen other deeds that contradict what we just said, or what we most egotistically hoped that we really meant deep down inside.

But I am aware of my own hypocrisy and I ain't got no bones about it: I choose to dislike the state of large parts of the world but I simply don't choose hard enough to go do and something about it. I can never forget the sadness and suffering that people face every hour of every day, but I allow myself to be selfish enough to know it is OK for me to enjoy life while other people are being totally f**ked over and are raped, murdered, tortured and humiliated by the Hitlers of today.

You know why I can do that? Because they're not me, simple as that. I'm just not denying to everyone else what almost everyone is denying to themselves; and I can do that because of my lack of belief structure of any kind, and my total, unquestionable lack of Faith.

Morals are mostly enforced by the Gods, gods that do not in fact exist by the way, but these fictional beards in the sky still speak to us from thousands of years ago and threaten to spank us in the afterlife if we do not obey their laws/do the right thing/fill their purses/tell other people how to kiss their arses. This may seem bizarre to you and I, but, y'know its weird, but there are about a couple of billion Christians, Muslims, etc etc etc? Crazy people, mad, dribbling types o' folk.…

But these gods of theirs, they gave us morals to live by so its all okay, for them to dominate people's existence, obviously.

You think? Actually no, morals were given to us by our peers, by the people we live with, they come from the prospective mothers and fathers of our children, and by the relatives of all these people because, simply put, morals are nothing but approval mechanisms.

We approve of good morals in others because morals, by their very nature, mean that the person exhibiting them is treating other people well, and who wouldn't want to be around someone like that? After all you might get a free lunch!!

That's about as complex as it gets; oh don't get me wrong there are whole books you can write on the subject but that's it, right there, morals are approval systems, and although millions of years of evolution have made us inherently more and more likely to approve of people being nice to other people besides ourselves, all that `benevolence` is ultimately self-serving because of either genetic links (be nice to our kids/parents: our parents care for us - self-serving, and our kids are our future – we can `live forever` through our descendents – self-serving) or is likely to lead to an improved overall situation for the group so increased comfort for us, which is totally, unquestionably and, dare I say it, imorally self-serving

So `morals` are just selfishness dressed up in politics, which neatly brings my two points together to highlight the simple conclusive truth behind this deal: I can choose to do anything I like to do at the time, and I can go out and kill people tonight if I want to: but the genetics of a million years - since man was an ape and an ape was the best bloody thing going - are telling me that morals exist and should be obeyed (for most of the time), and that other people are as important as myself (well, nearly as important) so everyone should be respected as I would want to be respected by them (there's those tricky damned `religious` ideas again, as if it wasn't obvious that they were stolen from the back of our minds in the first place * ).

But I appear to be quite lonely in thinking this when you look around, because although we get on well enough with people day-to-day there are still murders and rape carried out in this `civilized` country of ours, and those people who do these things all made choices that seem very clearly to be selfish, and if they had any `morals` they ignored them and went straight for the truth of the matter and did whatever they wanted to do.

I wont do that, but I'm acutely aware of how the thing works and while I choose to do decent things to satisfy my own sense of well-being and to push my `moral` buttons in order to get those wonderful genetically-engineered; by mother nature, no less; chemical highs that I get from doing good things, I'm also aware that morals, like god, and heaven, and The Point Of It All, simply do not exist.

We do not have to be good in this life so that we can get pampered by angels in the next, because there is as much to make me believe that there's a `next` as there is to make me think in 9 dimensions and believe that the internet is made of candyfloss and that dogs are reincarnations of failed 70's TV soaps.

Nothing is what we were and will be, forever and ever amen, and the idea of a moral guideline to make us act in a certain way because of some imagined punishment/reward once we cease to exist is simply laughable, it is accepting that fact in every day of your life that is too hard for people, but I've got used to it in recent years.

The best thing you can do however is to act `moral`, and to act like the true Christian or Muslim or Buddhist should act, because although those guys have entirely the wrong idea, the feelings you get – thanks to those genetic tricks of the past 10,000 generations of apes/cavemen/farmers/office workers – are like drug highs and trips that keep us going through the day and let us sleep well at night.

Who would have thought that religion was based on the same thing as a smack habit eh? Well, I probably would have anyway, but now, I can explain why

*All except the one about `not worshipping false idols.` What they heard from their minds was "everyone should worship me and no-one else" (selfishness again) but they felt it wouldn't quite sit with the proletariat, funnily enough, so in place of their own desires they invented a thoroughly malleable (at the time, at least) figurehead, who rather conveniently could never be seen and could never be proven to exist. Hmm, how very convenient indeed …