30 years after Francis Fukuyama prematurely ejaculated the phrase ‘end of history’ to describe a post ideological paradigm where only reason was left standing, we’re officially at the end of fucking days.
If there is a God – he’s a comedian – I’ll give him that. As humanity unravels quantum entanglement and synthesizes edible proteins from recycled C02…… it turns out that Boris Johnson isn’t a cautionary tale about contraception or an early casualty on Love Island – he’s the British Prime Minister.
The US President may sound like a 3 year old swearing he never shat his pants while declaring himself Sex Emperor of the Winning, but at least his incoherent lamppost humping makes some kind of addled sense. Me big man. Lamppost gonna get it. Lamppost loves it. Yay Me. But the Boris approach doesn’t even seem to have that level of ambition. Positive thinking gibber gibber. No, but yes, but nobut Jam. It’s like an Aldi version of Prince Phillip.
But there’s got to be something deeper in play. Both Johnson and Trump claim the future while fetishizing a narcotic past – Make America Great AGAIN. Take BACK Control.
Meanwhile AI, automation, gene editing, the climate crisis…… the irony of our politicians refusing to legislate for the inevitable while shouting the national anthem under a testosterone duvet is something history won’t forget.
Every existential threat is global. Terrorists are a fucking sideshow. If we can’t regulate AI, biotechnology and carbon emissions through multi-lateral consensus – we’re fucked. The banking crisis was John the Baptist for Christ’s sake – playing countries off each other for tax and regulatory breaks made companies more powerful than any one government. All it takes is a single weak link for a virus to replicate. If ever there was a time to build rather than burn alliances…..
And maybe it’s about religion too – if science has made God increasingly implausible, perhaps we’ve got some biological imperative toward faith. It’s not just a right wing phenomenon either – the backflips I’ve seen from people trying to rationalize Corbyn’s incompetence are downright Olympian. The man is drowning against the most dysfunctional Tory government in history, but still it’s everyone else’s fault.
On the day Boris Johnson slithered into Number 10 on a wave of third rate Woosterisms – there’s nothing left but to howl at the moon and hope he doesn’t try to hump it.
Cyrus Bozorgmehr 