Underdogs....

Now, the Beard, as you may or may not know, and why should or shouldn't you, has always been a champion... well, more of a supporter of the underdog against what we shall call for no good reason other than the law of opposites, the Overcat.... This may lead you to the illogical conclusion that it would please the Beard greatly if equality were to prevail, and the underdog were to become a thing of the past, with each man's responsibilities and privileges (if you recall my stance on rights...) becoming the same as any others, and each of us being listened to and given the same opportunities...

But you'd be wrong (as I say, remember the Beard's stance on rights...)

The Beard is, as I say, a great supporter of the underdog, right up to the point where he defeats his opponent ( the underdog that is, not the Beard) and joins the Overcat society, thus enabling himself to create more underdogs.. and this is a good thing... because by creating underdogs we assure our survival...

How so, I hear you gasp... quite simply... it is the underdog who struggles, who strives, and makes the world a better place by doing so... the overcat of course doesn't have to struggle... and it is the strugglers and strivers who create the new... it is their belief against the odds that their idea, their viewpoint, their ideal, is worth so much that they can take on insuperable odds and somehow super them that does so much for the world at large... and to promote that struggle and advancement, we need more underdogs, not fewer...

Of course, in a society such as ours today, that will never be a problem, designed as it is to ensure that people are either elevated beyond all reason or pushed down into the dirt... Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out what the scene is... oops, slipped into a bit of Kirsty MacColl there... no comedians, please.... but it doesn't take a genius to work out that the Beard, (who famously asked who Andy Murray was the other day, believing that when the Future Mrs Beard mentioned such personage she was referring to a facebook friend... of which, more later...) is not a big fan of the whole celebrity thing... personally I can never see myself as being the sort of person who doesn't read the "i" because it didn't mention what Cheryl Cole or Jordan were up to... you know who you are...

Now, the Beard, being a minor celebrity himself (so minor, in fact, that he has slipped out of the far side of famous, and is rapidly approaching the top of the pile from the other end, in a relativistic, quantum sort of way) knows just how fleeting such status is... and hopes that eventually we go back to being the sort of society where it becomes fleeting again... famous for fifteen minutes I can stand... but when some of these people who, quite honestly, deserve four minutes and fifty seconds at the very most then cling on with their fingernails to the duration of fame formerly reserved for quite good actors, or clever physicists, or war winning generals, then I believe that it points at a rot deep deep in the heart of society.... And it's unfairly robbing some of you of your own fifteen minutes.... which may be grounds for suing Jordan... or maybe not....

And that heart, lets be honest, is not all that deep... without wishing to overuse the honesty bit, well, lets be honest, society is all we've managed so far... civilisation, at least in so far as we would want the word to mean, has passed us by for millenia.... of course, we and the Romans, and the Greeks, and the Sumerians, and whoever there was whenever, all pretended to believe that we had achieved civilised status... but to be truthful all we as a race have ever achieved is bigger tribes than anyone else... and this has been so successful that the big tribes have split into smaller sub tribes, admittedly with flexible membership, but with a big big problem... unable to really see themselves as part of the big super tribe, and with liited space to carve out their own territory and break from the big group, they are left alienated, confused, and almost certainly tempestuous, if not positively warlike.

We would all like to think of ourselves as civilised, of course, but we're not.. one small scratch reveals the animal beneath... and it's only going to get worse... humans aren't supposed to live in big groups, nor is any animal... we've done our best to make sure that there are resources enough to feed us and so on, in an attempt to quell internicine strife, but it hasn't really worked.. as usual, the bigger, more advanced tribes have ganged up on the weaker to withhold the stuff of life... and have attempted to channel any violent, tribal urges into apparently safer pursuits like the football, X-Factor loyalties, FaceBook feuds, bullying and limited warfare... but it's fooling no-one guys... and one day, it's all going to blow up in our faces.... perhaps it already has...

Unfortunately, the Beard has to hope that this scenario is true... after all, his "Gaian Man as antibody" theory relies on it... if you are not aware of the theory, a quick synopsis... man is not a cancer, destroying the environment, but an antibody whose purpose is to raise global temperatures etc and then get wiped out, with the satisfaction of a job well done, so that the good old earth can safely enter the next stage of its life cycle.... which is a comforting thought, possibly... or possibly not...

But the hour is getting short of minutes, the Beard's cold is wearing him down, and bed along with the Future Mrs Beard beckons... so it remains to say, that until fame is as fleting as it deserves to be, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!