David Mitchell and Non-conforming

[Ozymandias]

I just read this comment piece (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/08/david-mitchell-bin-laden-alan-sugar) from David Mitchell, and thought he summed up rather well why I feel the need to disagree with everything.

Apparently I have a desire to be socially included and hope you will join me in hating everything. I thought it was rather brilliant and wanted to share.


The paradox at the heart of a lot of not joining in is a desire to be prescriptive. It's not just that the non-joiners don't want to dance – they wish no one would. They want everyone to join in with them. So, are people who reject consensus secret megalomaniacs? Concealed behind their demands that their views should be tolerated, is there a glaring intolerance of other people's views? Or is it their understanding that we all want to be listened to, agreed with, copied, maybe even worshipped, that makes them suspicious of circumstances where most people are doing or thinking the same thing? They know that, at the centre of that whirl of concerted activity, someone's ego is being dangerously flattered.

I do find that David Mitchell is one of the few commentators who makes sense most of the time.

[neilstone40]

I just read this comment piece from David Mitchell, and thought he summed up rather well why I feel the need to disagree with everything.

Apparently I have a desire to be socially included and hope you will join me in hating everything. I thought it was rather brilliant and wanted to share.


The paradox at the heart of a lot of not joining in is a desire to be prescriptive. It's not just that the non-joiners don't want to dance – they wish no one would. They want everyone to join in with them. So, are people who reject consensus secret megalomaniacs? Concealed behind their demands that their views should be tolerated, is there a glaring intolerance of other people's views? Or is it their understanding that we all want to be listened to, agreed with, copied, maybe even worshipped, that makes them suspicious of circumstances where most people are doing or thinking the same thing? They know that, at the centre of that whirl of concerted activity, someone's ego is being dangerously flattered.

I do find that David Mitchell is one of the few commentators who makes sense most of the time.


David Mitchell is always worth listening to. There is an old fashioned, subtly satirical quality to him that generally avoids the easy shock tactics and cheap laughs many comedians roll out. He's very entertaining and, as real satire should be, provokes independent thought and often contention to the accepted viewpoint.

Sometimes to truly illustrate how ridiculous the status quo is, you have to actually ridicule it...

We all need people to disagree. Without disagreement there is no debate only acceptance and often ambivalence. Disagreement is often the catalyst to attacking erroneous viewpoints and arriving at more robust ways of thinking.

Much of humanity's progress has been stymied due to a lack of disagreement. How many have been censured of even tortured or killed because they have disagreed with the prevailing belief, especially by those who were later discovered to be completely wrong (heliocentrism anyone?).

So yeah, I completely agree disagreement is both good and necessary. What does disturb me FUBG, is that we've been agreeing far too much recently and both risk the ingress of ambivalence and complacency. We need to find some stuff to disagree on and quick.

If we all start disagreeing sooner or later we'll all end up in agreement and that's the last thing we need...:D

Excellent article thanks for sharing...

[DMB]

I'm a fan of Mitchell too. Sorry to disappoint you, FUBG, it seems we actually have something in common. :D

[munnki]

Well... I'm prepared to hate David Mitchell just to keep the group diverse... However, I'm not entirely sure I know who he is..so...

As for conforming... you're damned if you do and damned if you don't...either way you're a conformist..

Take the recent whacking/eliminating/removal of Bin Laden by a Special Ops team in Pakistan... you could either believe...

i) He was really killed in which case you would be conforming to the line of people who think 'they'd never have made that up'...
ii) He wasn't really killed in which case you'd be conforming to the mass of conspiracy theorists who think 'they're making it up to manipulate us...'

Nay... you have to be truly imaginative to be a real non-conformist... something like Osama Bin Laden was actually a Finnish lesbian who liked to ride on horses with Russian weapons, hang out with extremists in the desert, use a dialysis machine for kicks and speak a multitude of Arabic languages.... She got fucked over by her lesbian lover who worked for the New York Subway and thought that she'd be in work at the WTC stop on the morning of Sept 11.... She convinced her Arab friends that they'd also be able to strike at the Great Satan but on failing to kill her lover following the attack killed herself near a bus station in Stockholm....

Now...that's non-conformism... most of what's out there is just echoing one or another ideology or prevalent view...

[Free in Freeport]

Misery loves miserable company

[Rie]

My last encounter with a woman whom I thought was my friend left me in confused pieces. Basically she doesn't ever want me as a friend because I stated chirpily, as is my wont, that although I appreciated our friendship it was over red rover because I couldn't join in with the closeness to God thing.
Oh yes, they conform and are pig headedly intolerant.