“Who are you voting against?” That’s how elections work almost everywhere now. If only those who genuinely supported a party or coalition went to the polls, turnout would be so low that a show of hands would suffice.
Since there’s always someone more hated than the rest, people vote for the other one—sometimes even convincing themselves he’s something different and dressing him up accordingly.
“Which contender are you rooting against?” That’s exactly how it goes on the geopolitical stage too, with delusional fantasies about unlikely alliances between various thugs and frantic, messianic-apocalyptic hopes.
I n thesocial media planet, it’s perfectly reasonable to detest one side more than the other. And I’m certainly not here to shame those who can’t manage to hate both. In fact, doing so might be the harder path—because it means stepping outside the fiction where we pretend to engage with reality by sharing and amplifying whatever online “news” best supports our favorite psychotic narrative.
You’re absolutely free to decide that only one deserves your contempt. Just don’t twist reality to the point of becoming LGBT and feminist for the ayatollahs, or pro-European for Israel.
Israel is not a bulwark against Islamization—if anything, it’s an aggravating factor.
Iran, for its part, is a regime that, for nearly half a century, has committed countless crimes against national-social movements, including the Palestinian cause itself. With help from Israelis and Americans, it helped bring down Saddam’s Iraq. For three years now, it’s been supplying drones to bomb a European country, in support of an invasion marked by ethnic replacement. And it’s currently threatening Armenia.
I won’t even delve into its self-righteous fundamentalism, rooted in SUBMISSION—the very opposite of INDO-EUROPEAN SPIRITUALITY (I suggest reading Günther).
From both a realist perspective on international relations and from the standpoint of values—or better, principles—neither side deserves even a shred of sympathy.
Emotionally, if your heart isn’t large enough and your mind not open enough to loathe them both, and to hope they cancel each other out forever, I still get it.
I’m not advocating neutrality—I’m advocating hostility toward both. Not necessarily equal hostility. But even if it’s unbalanced, don’t forget: the other side is no more worthy of respect or sympathy.
That is, if our aim remains inward-looking, directed toward building our own destiny. If instead we can’t resist role-playing the binary Apocalypse on the web to feel part of something, then of course—we’ll have to pick a side from which to vomit.
Your call. I choose to vomit on both.
