From the “The Surrender Bill!” and “Traitors!” to a tacit support of a Russian dictator, the contrarians have returned. Hooray for scrutiny, Free Speech and questioning. That's right, you got it.. The same Barons of Bellendry, the same witless, exhausting, 'silenced' though never silent mediums-of-tedium who we saw taking an anti-EU stance with their cries of treachery and obsession with what “The People” want, seem only too happy to withhold their ire for an authoritarian who would incinerate their own home country, if he could. 2016: SOVEREIGNTY! FREEDOM! WHY DO YOU HATE BRITAIN! 2022: I apparently like authoritarian dictators invading European countries now #growth It’s utterly fucking bizarre, isn’t it? I mean, how did we get here? How did we get from 5th gear patriotism to pro neo-Hitler!? From such a toxic domestic situation, so drunk on sovereignty that an MP was STABBED TO FUCKING DEATH by an idiot screaming “BRITAIN FIRST!”, to this same breed merely shrugging at the invasion of a European nation? I mean, The Brexit March be damned, how have they navigated this most tricky of psychological trajectories? Does it come from their natural, parked-in-neutral mindset? Their default setting of “dismissive sceptic”? Because that would make sense. Let’s keep it 💯: if a privately-funded, guerrilla marketing campaign can convince you that the E.U. are the source of your problems, and that Tories care more for you than Doctors or Nurses - that institutions setup to help are not to be trusted - who’s to say you aren’t ALSO susceptible to the idea that the media aren’t telling you the whole truth about Ukraine, maaaaaaan? It's the same, covert, internet-fuelled cynicism just played out on different stages. Because to a greater or lesser extent, to some brains specifically - psychologically and politically - it’s exactly the same thing. Yes, Ukraine is a horror story, the reverberations of which we’re likely to feel for decades to come, but to simpler minds, it's just another opportunity to chin-stroke while looking at everyone beneath them as ‘sheeple’ while they, from their ivory towers look down, and in-between posting other contrarianisms to Facebook ("DON'T LOOK UP"), they scoff: ‘Look at these pathetic Ukraine colour cretins, they all just gobble it up, but not me, I question everything ’. The blueprint for these titans of modern thought is actually quite simple. You could map the A.I. for it with a ZX Spectrum. It's "Here is a big problem (war, pandemic, Brexit), there's a humanitarian element (displacement/death, job losses/homelessness/cost of living) and a fair chunk of people asking the Govt to do the right thing (protect the displaced, vax/masks/lockdowns, don't leave the EU haphazardly). And once these people see those 3 pillars, their eyes track the triangular pivots, the dopamine begins to flow - and that's it, BOOM, they lock-in: "How Can I Take This Latest Crisis And Make Myself Look Like A Bargain-Bin Braveheart Again?" And so they go against the grain, they dismiss fearful reports, they're bloody mavericks, don't you know? They wish to be seen as the type of man (it is usually a man) who doesn't believe the official narrative, who's figured it out where others were too blind etc etc etc. We'll leave to the side that these men are invariably financially chaotic and failed to figure out how to save their marriage or pay their fucking water bill on time because what you're supposed to focus on, nay celebrate, is that they are smart because they're pushing back on the mainstream narrative. And look, it's not a bad thing to question shit. I'd like to think ANYONE bothering to read this article is questioningthat decision. Or at the least thinks of themselves as having a passing interest in critical thought. But with the ability to engage in Critical Thought comes the responsibility of being able to admit when you're wrong. And that's hugely important. The latter often totally absent in this same casserole of cunts. Question everything. Admit nothing. If you get something wrong, just question the evidence. Question the person providing it. Say nobody knows for sure though. Then dig deeper, deeper still. Question digging itself. Question what deeper means. Question it all until 2 + 2 doesn't even equal 4 anymore. It's an equation that's reflective of a mathematical paradigm you were never consulted on! Whose numbers even are these!? Not mine, Darren! Nummmmmmm berrrrrs. Even words sound made-up. Fuck this. ikbfvuyiadsvbuibgiuvubgiviubgviugvbiugviugvgiuvgiuv. Let's break it down. it's a good thing to question narratives, biases and sources if someone's telling you they heard that Australia were going to reintroduce some of their, err, more traditional 'Anti-Aborigine' policies (they're not). If they tell you that's happening, you should probably ask where that information is coming from, who said it and why. Scepticism can totes be a good thing. But if it turns out that it's bullshit, your responsibility as a rational human is to go "Oh. Yeh, I thought that sounded a bit over the top." or to hold your hands up and go "Ah! I feel like a right plonker now!". It is patently not to doubt the correction and call the person correcting you a shill. That makes you an irrational fucking lunatic. So amidst the current chaos with Russia and the West, you'd think we'd all be united in Britain, in condemnation for a Dictator seeking to expand his empire at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. You'd think the contrarians would have a field day questioning the narratives of Russia Today and its obviously faked footage. But nah bro. Everyone does that already so there's no social collateral in it. Instead, as per the blueprint, you get shit like this: "You know there's talk this could all crescendo into a Nuclear War" "Pfffff, where'd you read that?" "Everywhere" "Nah, it'll be alright" "What if it's not? What if Plutonium explodes IN YOUR MOUTH and your whole fucking face turns to ooze?" "Well, you don't know that'll happen, that's the thing, Gary, nobody knows." "Well, this woman with a PHD says half a second next to this fluid and it'll turn you into a glow stick - you'd be dead in a day." "Pffffff, I saw a butcher in Wales saying it'll turn you into Superman and it got 300 re-tweets, so who's to say what it'll do? We just don't know. That's the thing, Gary, NOBODY KNOWS." You take something big, add some fear, give suggestions for how to handle it - and watch this same lot start doing their vocal warm-ups getting ready to tell you you're worrying about nothing or virtue signalling or they don't trust the mainstream media. Their need to go against the grain for superficial reasons is on-par with a five year-old. We are firmly in "Don't play with the circle-saw, you might hurt yourself" territory. Except at least with children you can try a bit of reverse psychology, can't you? You can say "it's fine if you don't want to keep your room tidy, because only Superheroes do that". But a PR campaign telling contrarians that Putin's "a total bro!" and "a neo-Soviet Union would actually be a liberal win for progressives everywhere!" would just send them double-nut cumming at all the "BuT ThAt's FunnY Coz bEFoRE YoU sAiD..." tweets they could send. That's the thing. They want to be right. All the time. Even when they're not. And on the rare moment they're not right, they're questioning. And so never wrong. Even when the present 'right' conflicts with their previously held positions, which were and still are, weirdly right. Even when the obvious truth, by design or by accident happens to align with what Lefties want, or what Remoaners had warned about. Even when the human cost is so great. Even when... whatever. Honestly, whatever. They must never ever be wrong. And somehow that is still presented as Critical Thought. It is "stupidity" playing World Book Day dress-up as "reason". I suppose in such an era of political instability, biased (or outright fake) news, these constantly shifting political tectonic plates - at the very least - it is nice to know that one enduring constant will always be.
