I just now stumbled upon the following gem of an aggressive defense:

“J’aime les grandes métaphores venues de la religion : Miracle, Grâce, Salut, Corps Glorieux, Conversion… On a évidemment conclu de ce goût que ma philosophie était un christianisme déguisé. Le livre sur saint Paul que j’ai publié en 1997 aux PUF n’a pas arrangé les choses. À tout prendre, j’aime mieux être un athée révolutionnaire caché sous une langue religieuse qu’un “démocrate” occidental persécuteur de musulman(e)s déguisé en féministe laïque.” (Baidou: Second manifeste pour la philosophie note 4)

In case your French is a bit rusty, here is a rusty translation:

“I love the great religious metaphors: Miracle, Grace, Salvation, Glorious Body, Conversion… Obviously, someone concluded from this preference that my philosophy was disguised christianity. The book on Saint Paul, which I published in 1997 at PUF, didn’t help the matter. All considered, I would rather be a revolutionary atheist hidden behind a religious vernacular than an occidental “democrat” persecuting muslims disguised as a secular feminist.”

You almost want to high-five your buddy and chest bump your pal shouting “Snap! Them mo-fo’s got pwned!,” don’t you?

So, the idea of this fecal accumulation was to have a place through which to channel the pile of bile that rises within us all when encountering that which is too high, too low, too in the middle, as well as that which just generally rubs us the wrong way.

An example: When some semi-celeb on the front page of a wholly disgraceful newspaper states “I am good in bed”, you must be made of sturdier stuff than me to avoid shaking your fists at the world, shouting insults and death threats at all who would even think of finding such a journalistic abomination worthy of print. Another one: The former princess Alexandra (Denmark), once visited a very hot country, somewhere with elephants, I forget… A photo of this young lady in a sweat stained t-shirt appeared on the front page of one of the weekly attacks on the minds of the already challenged with the following title “The Princess’ Hot Flashes”. I mean, really!

The idea is, that in stead of calling up your friends, begging them to reinstate your will to live after having witnessed the depths of human stupidity and the shameless efforts to profit from it, you pour out your anger here! You try to verbally slaughter, in the most grotesquely violent manner possible, the atrocities of life that are beyond your legal control. You obtain your peace of mind through the extreme violence of word and imagery.

The problem is, that when delivering yourself of an extremely violent attack or maybe even an attack the violence of which consists of a whit tied with frilly bows (ouch!) you strike a blow which is less than fatal. You strike for the sake of striking, of lashing out, it is the slap of annoyance in stead of the meticulous execution of a well wrought argument. Few things die from the impromptu attack of irritation so once you are done with your huffing and puffing you just stand there, rather out of breath and somewhat less than menacing.

Usually, when your attack fails to kill or at least disable your opponent you should have a ready defense, but the point of todays waffle is that within the strictly controlled environment of your very own War Blog you don’t have to! At least not until someone actually insists that you justify your outrageous outbursts in which case you may want to smooth everything over with an apologetic air. But until that happens I am happily humming Ride of the Valkyries whilst sharpening and loading my pen. As the man said: “The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun!”