The Tyanny of “About”.

I am that I am. I will be what I will be. On defying the algorithm and becoming free to be our complex selves.

[Image: Moses at the Burning Bush from the film “The Ten Commandments”.]

And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt you say unto the children of Israel, “I Am” hath sent me unto you. [Exodus 3:14]

How do you grow your subscribership on Substack? It’s easy. Just like sin. You take one topic. One very narrow topic. And you relentlessly pummel it to death from this day forward.

How to exercise your dog. How to use AI effectively. Why you must vote for Democrat OR Republican. Thou shalt not stray from the boundaries of your specialiaty. Thou shalt not challenge the reader. And never forget: You must avoid nuance all costs. The other side is wrong in all respects.

It is all rather reminiscent of the speeches of Seth Godin. The marketing guru haa spoken of how we live in a different world now. Whereas in the mass market reality of the past, successful businesses targeted the whole market; whereas Coca Cola aimed at global conquest (and triumphed); a successful business today will think in terms of tribes. Sometimes those tribes can go onto influence the mass consumer, but the initial target group will be small. According to Godin, Apple started out with the nerds demographic. With time, the nerds became cool; but if Steve Jobs hadn’t designed his gadgets with this peripheral consumer in mind, he would have failed.

Godin speaks of the tribes that are all around us; the backbone of our mosaic society. The Red Hat Ladies. The lunatics who swin the freezing cold English Channel for fun. (In winter.) Each of these is a niche demographic ready to explore. The days of mass market products are over.

And what starts with capitalism ends with culture. We are all members of a tribe and the algorithms that regulate social media ensure that we stay that way. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than a geopolitical issue. It transcends religion and it leaves nationalism in its wake. The Middle East is a calling card for identity that forms part of who we are. And far from the shores of the Levant, the lives of us all are affected by the tremors therefrom. Not only Jews. Not only Palestinians. But young people who have never set foot in the Middle East - nor ever intend to - see the events from a distant land as the backbone of who they are. And as psychologists attest, reason struggles to change views that are part of one’s essential worldview.

Perhaps the state of the environment is your primary concern. Or the development of the Welfare State. Perhaps you feel that LGBT people are still unrepresented on television or that immigration should be defended. None of these subjects relate with each other in even the slightest way. And none of them has any commonality whatsoever with supporting a recognised Islamist terror group. Yet their nexus is like a Jenga tower. If you hold one view, you are obliged by tribal blood loyalty to hold the others. And should you equivocate about even one brick of the ideological matrix, the entire edifice will fall down; like the Jenga bricks now strewn inelegantly upon your kitchen table, you will be a fallen sinner in the eyes of your comrades. You will be expelled from the movement.

Although far more prevelant amongst neo-Marxist progressives, this excommunication ritual is also evident among those in the right wing that support Israel. Liberal, democratic Jewry - of which I am a proud member - rejected the authoritarian advances of Netanyahu in the matter of “judicial reform”. Faced with a potentially undemocratic Israel that offended our identity, were we to back the tribe? Or were we to call out the Likud’s illiberal legislation for what it was? I for one had the courage to stand up to potential tyranny. I spoke out against Netanyahu in the strongest possible terms. And I was joined by thousands and thousands of brave protesters on the streets of Israel. For us to have done otherwise would have caused a psychologically unconscionable identity crisis. Predictablly, many faux-Zionists tried to publicly silence the dissenters through blocking, unconnecting and the like. But we kept on regardless. Because an unfree Israel is an Israel which I am unable to support. Ultimately, liberal democratic Jewry - and the throngs of humanity in Tel Aviv - were able to reject tribal loyalty in favour of principle.

Unfortunately for the far-left, unprincipled support for Palestinian terrorist murderers is so intensely embedded in who they are, that they have felt psychological unable to back down. They have chosen the tribe over their basic humanity. And their self-righteous ideology has been exposed as immoral in the process. The post-October 7th circus - where progressives have been unable to condemn rape when it’s been against an Israeli; where professors have celebrated terrorism as liberating; where United Nations agencies have felt the need to invent famines and genocides; and where an ignorant media have felt duty-bound to uncritically pass on Hamas death figures - represents no more than a psychological progressive need to defend their sense of self. Palestine is manifestly NOT an LGBT issue. Yet their Jenga mentality is so fragile and illogically constructed that they have “no choice” but to maintain an ideology that cannot hold. Their identity is in crisis.

[Image (retrieved from the National Post): Queers for Palestine. The world’s oddest ideological partnership. But it’s a question of identity, not logic.]

The social media algorithm is absolutely at the heart of the Middle Eastern fetish. Here on Guerre and Shalom I have sought to speak of variety of issues as wide and varied as the situation in Sudan to the rule of law to intergenerational inequality to the philosophy of John Locke. I have published poems of love and poems of despair. I have dipped into Brexit, Scottish Independence and the French laws on the Muslim Hijab. Yet no matter what varied topics I’ve broached, the God-forsaken algortihm on Substack, LinkedIn and elsewhere has only felt able to direct my work to a “pro-Israel audience”.

Now don’t get me wrong! I am thrilled that those horrified with Hamas see a voice of reason here among the madness. Yet I am not a one-note robot. I am not a Seth Godin tribesman. I am a fully-rounded, complex human being and I want my audience to reflect that. I want those interested in Scottish politics to flock here; the defenders of liberal democracy to find refuge. I want those fed up with the artificial science-religion distinction to make landfall for common sense. I want to answer the distress calls of history lovers and welcome the mercanaries of an independant judiciary. Those who want to see love written on paper and stare at theocracy exposed should come to this address. But just look in my feed. It’s Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza and Gaza. Where the hell are the Scottish nationalist die-hards ready to made verbal war?! Where are the confounded enemies of democracy? This damned algorithm is trying to turn me into a category. And I will not comply. I am Daniel Clarke-Serret. And I cannot be defined nor classified.

The in-the-know at Substack suggest that a good “About” page is the key to attracting traffic. And mine is nothing to write home about. Its lacks images. It lacks charisma. But most of all, my About doesn’t know what it’s about. What is the purpose of this pulication? Why should people fork our their time (and cash?) to read my latest pearls? If I were in the money-making business, I’d listen to the market signals. More Gaza. Less colonialist revisionism. More Trump/Biden. Less Teaching/Scotland. But the market be damned! This newsletter isn’t about a narrow topic or an instrument for banging the same drum. And whilst their may be certain recurrent themes; and although I may return - quite naturally - to subjects of expertise; my avowed goal is to not be about anything. To have as wide a readership as possible. Market-driven niche writing is for ciphers. Guerre and Shalom is for humans. If you want to read about the Middle East, you’ll be offered a menu of poetry for starters and philosophy musings for dessert. Mine is no set menu; no Prêt-à-porter designed for fragile personalities in search of an identity. Only an à la carte for strangers not tied to tribal slavery.

The concept of “About” is tyrannical. Ein Wort, supported by ein Algorithmus, fortifying ein Reich where dissent is verboten. No free person is about just one thing. It a perfectly consistent for there to exist tree-hugging, gay capitalists who love diversity and detest Hamas. And here we come to hub of the matter. Whether I’m right or partly right or downright wrong, I am free to express my views and challenge the reader. I write without fear and if my lot excommunicate me, so be it. I couldn’t care less. I’m 41 years old now. The time for mucking about is over. The years are passing and cowering before the judgments of others is no longer an option.

[Image (retrieved from souljournaler.blogspot.com): Jacob and Esau embrace. Then separate.]

One day the biblical Jacob made a stand. He quit running away from Esau and fleeing from Laban. The dark night of the soul had arrived. He fought an angel and made it bless him. And do you know what that angel was? Fear. And for this he was renamed Israel: the one who struggles with God and prevails. The next day he met his brother on equal terms. They kissed. They reconcilied. And then they separated. Israel went on his way. Esau went on his. The years of childish cowardice had passed and Jacob marched forward in embrace of his true identity.

But Israel’s identity wasn’t fixed, set or easily categorised. He was separate to Esau; that we know. A person, a family, a nation that dwelt alone. But his positive identity? To this day, we are no closer to defining what Israel is, what it means and what we are about. But today I say that like Jacob before us, we don’t need to be about anything. We just need to be free to be. In this publication, no contributor is a doing verb. We are state verbs that are because we are. And in that freedom we are cognisant of our great mission and what we are called upon to protect.

Seth Godin once said that every person has a duty to blog. To express; and share his learnings with the world. He was right and now I’m doing my duty. Freely.

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