What Friends Recommend

Friday was our first night out in socially distanced Edinburgh, a late celebration of my birthday at Dishooms in St Andrews Square. Handwash as we went in, tables well spaced apart, waiters wearing masks...And then great food and cocktails. Awesome night, just to hear other people talking and laughing, to be in a different place! There are folk on the streets, but Edinburgh's still strangely empty.

We came back, lit the chimenea, drank prosecco in the garden til late... And then did nothing very much all Saturday.

Sunday was fun and frustrations; some mates recommended Plymouth Point, (https://swampmotel.co.uk/plymouth-point/) so we played it with a couple of other chums and it was excellent. Unfortunately, one of our mates' laptop played up which didn't help the experience, but ultimately success was ours! We were the Mystery Machine! I want more!

And then there was The Old Guard. Friends have been raving about this film, and as a Charlize Theron fan, I had high hopes.

God.

Sub-par Highlander with added box ticking. These are not characters but identification points for people to pour themselves into or empathise with.

The leader's an immortal greco-something warrior; the kind of person who promises you answers and gives none. These are warriors who do the right thing. Except she's sick of doing the right thing because it changes nothing and after thousands of years she would rather stare into the fire and tell her team not to bother. It might be sound advice but would make for a pretty boring eternity, which is just what this film feels like. But we are supposed to be interested because...?

Well, it's a female warrior lead innit? It's a woman and she can fight so yaayyy wow. I like tough scifi heroines, grew up with Sarah Connor, Ripley, Ivanova, Furiosa come to that, if we want to get recent. Strong female characters can obviously rock a story, and taciturn characters can be very charismatic. But the misery of Andi/Athene whoever-the-hell-she-is conquers even CT's powers of cool. Incredibly, she's dull.

Other eternal warriors include:

White Cis Het Guy: Discovered his immortality in the Napoleonic wars. The youngest (up til now!) of the bunch, he's basically the teenager in this group which means he is the one who can actually use a computer. That's it. This am what he do.

Gay Crusaders: This could have been great, the love between two of opposing faiths and aims, doughty warriors finding eternal love and passionately committing to it. OK, so what are they like? Couldn't tell you. They are good guys in love. They are gay. They are good. Good Gay. Gay Good. Somebody bloody do something, oh look, now they need rescuing. In a sublimely unaware moment of tone-doofness, the script lamps them with Princess Syndrome. Jaysus.

Black Newbie Heroine; we let her off being a blank slate, because she is our eyes on the new existence, and we learn as she learns. Most likely she will coax the team into rescuing Mate-Under-Sea, because in 400 years the mighty undying soldier who leads them has not been able to visit the dock from which her buddy was thrown and just swim down and find her.

I can't be sure that this is what happens; an hour in we gave up. And I am not an easy viewer to dissuade; I can be entertained by watching birds feed.

Still, I've entertained myself venting about it, so that's something.

"Wokeism"

Interesting. Not as sparky and fun as Matt Taibbi but it has a lot to say that's useful.

https://medium.com/rebel-wisdom/sleeping-woke-cancel-culture-and-simulated-religion-5f96af2cc107

Paragraphs that strike me:

"... Sociologist Aaron Antonovksy has proposed that a ‘Sense of Coherence’ — in which we which we feel our life fits into a wider scheme of meaning — is crucial for our wellbeing and a sense of meaning in our lives. Wokeism takes away coherence by replacing the sanctity of the individual with the sanctity of the group identity they believe constructs that individual (it could also deconstruct and thereby free them, if everyone would just use the right language). The result is an ever-shifting, dangerous world where you might be erased at any moment. Under this existential strain, it is no surprise that Wokeist adherents swing between compensatory narcissism, depressive nihilism, and find almost everything offensive...

...In Wokeism, true human empathy becomes a performance through virtue signalling on Twitter. True systemic change is simulated by a hashtag over a profile picture. And always the complexity and rawness of being human is boiled down to a single, rigid belief: you are an individual participating in or victimised by systems of oppression."

...The largest threat toward our civilisation would be a serious challenge to the corruption of our financial and political systems. A serious, concerted effort to address growing wealth inequality, lack of class mobility, environmental degradation and wide-spread corruption. As Adolph L Reed pointed out on a recent episode of the Useful Idiots podcast, the systemic issues that Wokeism sees as identity issues are often are primarily class issues. However, solving class issues requires genuine systemic change. Endless argument about identity does not, and is therefore selected for by institutions in order to maintain the status quo."

The bold is mine, highlighting something I find particularly disturbing about Wokeism. It's easy. It belongs in the pack and censures everyone outside it. Hard to see the difference between that and any 16th century village looking for a witch to burn, hard to avoid the assumed ownership of moral standards so self evidently correct as to be unquestionable, as though the mob with pitchforks didn't feel its rectitude to be a matter absolute down through the ages.

In short, it's the same old clamour to be accepted and to find a scapegoat that unites the tribe in the bonds of loathing. No-one enjoys power more than the weak.

Of course, there's the desire to do good too. But just how important this is to the phenomenon?