The crumbling pillars of society
The awful Pride Pillar, politicians who can barely say the word 'Jew', and Islamism's attack on democracy.
The ‘Pride Pillar’
The architects of the classical world gave us the Doric column, the Ionic column and the Corinthian column. You’ll know them from the iconic porticos of the Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome.
Now, Network Rail has given us the Imbecilic column. The ‘Pride Pillar’ is a stout and gaudy kaleidoscope of identity politics at London Bridge railway station. Why do we need so many flags about sexual identity and preferences, before boarding a train, of all things?
Ironically, Network Rail said the array of flags on the pillar was intended to 'help prevent confusion and misunderstanding about identity’. Yet I find myself more confused than ever.
The single Pride rainbow has been usurped by a cornucopia of confusing colours. The asexuals aren’t having it, the aromantics are having it, but don’t get slushy about it. Some people fancy one or both sexes, some people apparently fancy a unicorn array of infinite genders. And the pi symbol does not denote a fetish for mathematics but a supposedly infinite amount of love among the polyamourous. (Or a very finite amount of fidelity, depending on your point of view.)
I may have lost some of the finer details in translation but I’ve not taken a PhD in vexillology.
The Pride Pillar’s incomprehensible rainbow vacuity is born of the minds of the people who made up the flags. They are confused. First, because they believe men can be women and vice versa. Second, they think all these flags should matter to the rest of us. They’re wrong and they don’t. It can’t be pilloried enough.
Bad pillars of society
International Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorated last week, reminded me of a board game called Taboo, in which a player must convey a word to the other players, but is forbidden from using other ‘taboo’ words.
Supposed pillars of society signed memorial books and broadcast their tributes on social media without mentioning the words ‘Jews’ or ‘Jewish’ or ‘antisemitism’, or they mentioned them in such a way as to diminish the meaning.