The Ten Commandments (updated)

 

1  Thou shalt have no gods at all. Thou shalt worship the new secular humanism. Thou shalt follow the paths of militant atheism, postmodern nihilism, neo-Darwinist empiricism. All ye who cling to the major religions and to the pagan gods shall be laughed at and presumed daft or mad. All ye who claim to have mystical visions shall be swiftly sectioned. Oh yes, and thou shalt have no goddess whatsoever. Not Isis, not Shakti, not Brid. Thou mayest looketh at Gaia Theory but thou shouldst not get carried away.

2  Thou shalt worship matinee idols, popstars, footballers, politicians, gossip columnists, celebrity chefs, T.V. historians, media moguls, supermodels and anyone who employs the services of an image consultant. Thou shalt spend ridiculous amounts of money on bits of Damien Hirst tat for thy boardrooms. Thou shalt look upto Dr. Dawkins as a clean-shaven patriarch and hear his snide, sneaky voice as prophetically thunderous. Thou shalt not take serious art or serious philosophy seriously.

3 Thou shalt not use the word ‘God’ in any public discourse except OMG in text messages and online chats.

4 Remember there is no Sabbath anymore and that thou must worketh thine arse off 24/7 just to maketh ends meet. Remember that the world took millions of years to evolve and that we are therefore extending the age of retirement and reducing thy pensions. Remember thou, when thou clocketh out of thine workplace (if thou hast one), to put in long hours of overtime in thy local mall buying rubbish designer goods, and thou must spend thy weekends in the mall also.

5  Honour thy father and thy mother, especially if they live in country mansions in the South-East, or in penthouses in London. Thou hast full permission to dishonour thy feckless, alcoholic, runaway father and thy shiftless, stay-at-home, single mother. Thou shouldst not overly respecteth parents who live in council housing, even if they are still together. If thou suspecteth thy father or mother of benefit fraud thou shouldst call us on our ‘Rat on a Rat’ hotline.

6  Thou shalt do no one in (unless thou art a policeman, a professional hitman, a freemason, an arms trader, a military commander, a soldier, an MI5 agent, a CIA agent, or an unhappily married prince. Russians must not assassinateth their own subjects on foreign soil).

7  Thou shalt have no bits on the side unless thou art officially ‘polyamorous’, or otherwise in an open relationship, or canst affordeth to pay a sex worker. If thou art a celeb and thou hast a bit on the side thou shalt be fully exposed in the scandal sheets. Even if thou aren’t a celeb but are affluent middle-class, watcheth out, thy current squeeze might hireth a private dick.

8 Thou shalt not loot, shoplift, catburgle, mug, pickpocket, bankrob, or falsely claim sickness and housing benefits, but thou mayest tax-evade, rogue-trade, loan-shark, embezzle, taketh candy from babies, and raise VAT willynilly.  (N.B. Thou mayest only tax-evade if thou art a Tory donor.) Thou shalt not commit identity theft – unless thou art Tony Blair and wisheth to steal Mrs Thatcher’s identity, or thou art David Cameron and wisheth to steal Tony Blair’s identity. Thou gettest the drift.

9 Thou shalt not spin, manipulate, spreadeth disinformation, engageth in smear campaigns or negative briefing, nor shalt thou telleth whoppers/tall tales/pork pies, nor shalt thou wilfully mislead, nor shalt thou bear false witness, nor shalt thou psychopathically fantasise and self-justify, nor shalt thou compileth dodgy dossiers and/or whitewash reports, nor shouldst thou seek to prohibit Wikileaks or to frameth Assange. Thou mayest, of course, lieth through thine implants ‘for the public good’.

10 Thou shouldst covet anything we fucking advertise, but remember thou as thou readst Hello!, the only gated properties you’re likely to end up in are Her Majesty’s Prisons.

 

Niall McDevitt

Photos: Max Reeves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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12 Responses to The Ten Commandments (updated)

    1. Thou shall call all hippies boring old farts and set lighteth to them.

      Comment by johnnyvoid on 1 July, 2012 at 7:31 pm
    2. And all crusties shall burneth in hell for eternity with no Tennents Super to slake their thirst.

      Comment by Editor on 2 July, 2012 at 11:29 am
    3. Curiouse use of the word ‘hippy’. Can be confusing without clear definition. Unless the user has a personal grudge of some sort. Can’t let this go by without quibbling since the name was once proudly born by many. Once upon a time the word meant anti-establishment. An inclination towards hedonism perhaps. A rejection of bourgoise values and cultural conventions of the stuffy kind. Or is this scornful attitude expressed on account that the ‘hippy’ revolution is considered to have failed. If it failed then how come this website is producing such insightful views on the devious skullduggeries of the present powers that be?
      If the thinking behind the use of this word is more than just rant, then an answer would be interesting.

      Comment by Dave Tomlin on 2 July, 2012 at 1:55 pm
    4. Niall:

      The use of the word hippy here is clearly prejudical and pandering to the basest instincts of Mr. Void’s imagined audience. It is not more than just rant, and thus perfectly uninteresting. One of the punk mottoes was ‘Never Trust a Hippy’; Mr Void seems to be parroting this sentiment even as the punk generation rapidly approaches its unearned bus-pass. Its violent overtones are such that Void could be done for breaching the ‘incitement to hatred’ act.

      Comment by Editor on 2 July, 2012 at 4:26 pm
    5. Uncritical Assange hero worship, fake religion, conspiracy theories, reactionary mysticism, sneers at working class culture and crude individualism- that’s what today’s hippies are made of.

      Comment by johnnyvoid on 5 July, 2012 at 3:52 pm
    6. ‘Uncritical Assange hero worship’. Does this imply that Assange should have kept his mouth shut, which taken to its extreme would be the end of investigative journalism?
      ‘Fake religion’. This is a difficult one. Some would hold that religion is whatever is worshipped and therefore the god of capitalism and finance is Mammon (the worship of money). See the church of Mammon triumphant in the ‘Shard’ now standing adjacent to the national symbol of the religion of Love: St Paul’s cathedral.
      Or perhaps Druidism, a pagan religion still associated with Hippydome (long haired beardies etc)?
      Buddhism? Well the hippies certainly went for that, although not really a religion at all.
      Nevertheless, ‘fake religion’ does imply that there is a ‘real religion’ and it would be interesting to hear what the commentator considers such to be.
      Conspiracy theories. Anyone who disbelieves what the government tells them is a conspiracy theorist.
      Reactionary mysticism. Come on you shyster you made that one up.
      Working class culture: ‘The Sun’ newspaper; Fish and chips; Football; TV sitcoms; Package holidays;
      Baseball caps; O.A.Ps ?
      Hippies, surely an endangered species if not entirely extinct.
      Crude individualism: Is refined individualism allowed? And if so what might it be? Give examples.

      Comment by Dave Tomlin on 6 July, 2012 at 1:36 pm
    7. I see, so there is something personal about it. The problem is that this is a public site and therefore if the language used is not properly defined it cannot be universally understood and the points being made recognised, whilst the hidden obstacles towards the slaying of the Beast become even further obscured. After all, pointing out the evils which are being done unto us in the name of ‘Government’ would be pointless, unless there were some expectation that it might reveal a new move in the game to bring the whole Machivellian farce tumbling down to be replaced by something a little healthier.
      Nevertheless, it is an interesting issue since it illustrates a kind of ‘language creep’ whereby original meanings, through misuse, become lost, sometimes as in Orwell’s ‘Newspeak’, to the advantage of the Powers that Be. The advantage to them here being the occasion of an internicene squabble which can supposedly be fun, but if taken seriously leads to a dilution of energies and a subsequent loss of real direction.

      Comment by Dave Tomlin on 3 July, 2012 at 12:30 pm
    8. It’s not about the usage of language. Void simply dislikes hippies. He should stick to attacking politicians rather than oppressed working-class people with long hair and New Age beliefs.

      Comment by Editor on 3 July, 2012 at 1:43 pm
    9. Further to my last. The mention of punk and undeserved bus-passes. In the days when real punks walked the earth there were of course no such thing as bus-passes – or buses as we know them either for that matter. Take the first archetypal punk John Keats, who’s Sonnet ‘If by dull rhymes our English must be chained’. Certainly blew Petrarch’s rhyming scheme out of the water and struck a mighty blow for poetic freedom far and away beyond anything the pathetic Johnny Rotten could at his best acheive with his juvenile God Save the Queen.

      ‘If by dull rhymes our English must be chained, a
      And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet b
      Fettered, in spite of pained loveliness, c
      Let us find out, if we must be constrained, a
      Sandals more interwoven and complete b
      To fit the naked foot of Poesy: d
      Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress c
      Of every chord, and see what may be gained a
      By ear industrious, and attention meet; b
      Misers of sound and syllable, no less c
      Than Midas of his coinage, let us be d
      Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown; e
      So, if we may not let the Muse be free, d
      She will be bound with garlands of her own. e

      John Keats – King of the Punks.

      Comment by Dave Tomlin on 3 July, 2012 at 1:14 pm
    10. Cannot let this pass either. Hippies were hardly confined to the working-class, albeit long-haired. ‘New age beliefs’ yes, amongst which ideas such as ‘peace’ and love were prominant. However, perhaps these are the very views that infiltrate the noses of hard-line Anarchists. Peace of course went out with ‘The Masters of War’ who are not, it must be said, Ministers of the MOD; Directors of the Armaments (sic) industry, nor the managers or shareholders of such enterprises, since none amongst these ever get within a mile of a gun or bullet or bomb or lethal weapon of any kind. The Masters of War are the common workers in that industry who kiss their wives every morning, go off to the factory and actually produce the weapons. Without these workers the Ministers, Directors, Managers and shareholders would find themselves hardly able to construct a bow and arrow. And of course, in their own interests these workers would never come out for peace. It is no use looking to find out where the buck stops; in nearly every case it stops right here!

      Comment by Dave Tomlin on 4 July, 2012 at 1:54 pm
    11. Apologies Dave, have been busy. In answer to your points:

      ‘Uncritical Assange hero worship’. Does this imply that Assange should have kept his mouth shut, which taken to its extreme would be the end of investigative journalism?

      No he should have kept his mouth open and his dick in his pants. The allegations, whilst unproven, seem credible – his statement in his own defence is testament to that. He is an avowed free market ideologue and egotist and therefore no political ally of mine. I’m not prepared to deny the experience of the women who claim he abused them based on little more than assumptions that he is being framed. He is the architect of his own misfortune.

      ‘‘Fake religion’. This is a difficult one. Some would hold that religion is whatever is worshipped and therefore the god of capitalism and finance is Mammon (the worship of money). See the church of Mammon triumphant in the ‘Shard’ now standing adjacent to the national symbol of the religion of Love: St Paul’s cathedral.
      Or perhaps Druidism, a pagan religion still associated with Hippydome (long haired beardies etc)?
      Buddhism? Well the hippies certainly went for that, although not really a religion at all.
      Nevertheless, ‘fake religion’ does imply that there is a ‘real religion’ and it would be interesting to hear what the commentator considers such to be.’

      All religions that claim to answer unknowable or unknown truths are fake. Whilst Buddhism has a little wriggle room, I will accept that it’s not a proper religion. Neither is modern druidry, paganism, wicca, theosophy, gaia worship or any of the rest of the endless concoctions which seem merely to be an excuse for bad new age writers to flog silly books to gullible people. All religion is fake, but some religions are more fake than others.

      “Conspiracy theories. Anyone who disbelieves what the government tells them is a conspiracy theorist.”

      On the contrary, healthy scepticism of government pronouncements is a good thing. Making things up with no evidence is not a good thing. Much as I despise the jug-eared prince I have no wish to live in a world in which people can be accused of murder with no evidence other than a vague suspicion to back it up. This is not something that would work out well for us.

      “Reactionary mysticism. Come on you shyster you made that one up.”

      All mysticism is reactionary, if not by intent then in practice. That which seeks to mystify and bewilder is the tool of fascists, confidence tricksters and religious despots. Blake would be an atheist were he alive today. I have no wish to deny anyone their right to believe in fairy stories, but when silly fantasies are placed above rationalism and scientific enquiry, as in Commandments 1 and 2 then I’m afraid the line is over stepped. Are childish dreams of Gaia, Isis or Jehova really any different to the current idolatry aimed at celebrities which is alluded to in Commandment 10. At least Cheryl Cole actually fucking exists.

      “Working class culture: ‘The Sun’ newspaper; Fish and chips; Football; TV sitcoms; Package holidays; Baseball caps; O.A.Ps ?”

      Give me a footy match and some fish and chips over Tibetan throat singing or a reiki workshop anyday.

      “Crude individualism: Is refined individualism allowed? And if so what might it be? Give examples.”

      Refined individualism is missing the revolution to write a symphony. Crude individualism is jumping through intellectual hoops to justify abusing the trust of a partner as in Commandment 7. This kinda shit always ends up sneaking in when hippies get involved in politics.

      As for your point about the arms trade. Well I’m afraid outside of a few Notting Hill squats, peace was never in. I would love to see the end of the arms trade, however I refuse to blame the working class, their under threat of destitution, for the problems created by a capitalist war economy. Perhaps one day we will see them turn those guns on the owners of the arms companies. That would be one step towards genuine peace.

      Comment by johnnyvoid on 11 July, 2012 at 5:54 pm
    12. I was under the impression that hippies were just consumers who bought a look off a label and were despised by freaks and beats. A very similar situation existed with punks who bought their stuff off a peg rather than following a do-it-yourself aesthetic.

      Comment by Emmet Haverty-Stacke on 18 April, 2013 at 2:37 pm

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