The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[I found this as a draft after I said I was ending the blog but I hate leaving things unfinished, so THIS is the last post for AotF]

The "social media" which is supposed to connect us is also a catalyst for distilling previously hidden differences which will push us apart.  I know people who insist on spewing their pet causes and political ideals all over the news feed, and I have "unfriended" several over things they insist on inflicting on everyone they know. 

Once upon a time there were rules for polite company, and not discussing politics or religion played a large part in them.  Now everybody knows what (almost) everybody thinks about pretty-much EVERYTHING, all the time, and familiarity does indeed breed contempt.  "Social Media" encourages a great deal of what I consider to be anti-social behaviour, specifically ad hominem attacks.  I will go after peoples' IDEAS, but not them personally; if I feel that negatively about the person I won't waste my time or effort on them.

Of course what happens when people know who you are pales in comparison to what happens when people can be anonymous.  Yes, I know that sounds hypocritical on my anonymous blog, but I have work-related reasons to keep things the way they are. More importantly, I never say anything here that I would not say in person to whoever I'm talking about, violent idiots excepted; I'd rather deal with them through a rifle scope or the business end of a cosh.

My point?  I couldn't deal with 600 real friends, I see no point in aspiring to have that many cyber acquaintances.  How many of your Facebook "friends" would help you move?  Show up to a BBQ? It's now like people have anywhere up to thousands of pen-pals, except that you are sharing your life in 140 characters or so at a time.  What do we really know about the personalities of these people?  Knowing their taste in cat videos is not the same as knowing their hopes and dreams or having those "you-had-to-be-there" in-joke memories from the stupid things you've done together.

Facebook is a tool, and like all tools it can be misused and hurt people.  The anti-bullying efforts that are being made today are being stymied if not outright thwarted by the fact that if people are hassling you, it doesn't end at school.  Even if you try to avoid them online, once those parasites have their sights on you they will spread horrible shit about you via whatever social media is trendy at the time.  My personal solution for bullying is to meet it with superior force or at the very least surprise and violence to make them think twice about messing with you, but the sort of kids who get bullied are picked on because they are incapable of standing up for or organizing amoungst themselves.

The title refers to a Kipling poem about cutting through bullshit and identifying basic truths:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

One look around the world indicates that our part of it at the very least is trying entirely too hard to ignore objective reality in favour of what we'd LIKE to see. This blog started modelled on "Arithmetic on the Frontier" (hence the name, go figure) but as it has moved along over the years I think the message is more in line with the above.  New and shiny is not necessarily better, and that applies to ideas as well as gadgets.  Certainly things have improved immeasurably since the Bad Old Days, but hard times taught some hard lessons which we would do well to remember lest we need to constantly re-learn them the hard way.

Not the End of the World, just the end of this.

It's been over a month since I've had any real drive to write anything here so I think this'll be it.  I just don't feel that I have anything new to add, in effect I have run through all of my opinions on anything I'd write about; I really wanted to stimulate some discussion here but that has not really worked either.  I'm not sure exactly what happened but I find it much harder to get worked up about this stuff, and the intemperate rant was the lifeblood of this blog. 

The problem is of course me and not whoever is/is not reading my stuff, but the good news is that the demise of AotF won't disappoint too many people.  The blog has survived a lot of upheavals in my life including a combat tour to Afghanistan, but it's tired so it's time to retire it.  Maybe when I retire as well I'll find a new life for this, but that's a few years off yet so don't hold your breath. 

There are some real diamonds in all of this rough, so I remain pleased with the six years that AotF has skulked in its' obscure corner of the interweb.  At the end of the day, if I have managed to make even one person actually THINK about something as opposed to just parroting what the schools and media indoctrinate them with, I will count it a sucess.