This, That, Other.

Had we but world enough, and time.

In case you missed it, Substack is now offering a platform to Huw Edwards. The disgraced BBC newsreader caught with indecent images of teenagers and kids (some Category A) plus chasing up vulnerable boys in real time. He was convicted of his crimes and fired from the BBC. Now, he’s staging a comeback via Substack.

How hard is is to protect a platform from Pornos. Pimps. Paedoz?

FFS Substack, even cheap nightclubs have bouncers on the door.

I know lots of you wrote in to Farrah Storr and her Free Speech loving bosses, Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, about professional misogynist, Andrew Tate, being welcomed onto the platform and promoted with open arms. Didn’t do any good.

In so much as we come to Substack for whatever it is we want to read, or write, we have to accept that the platform has no values. (Except the Value of the Platform ready for the IPO I imagine)

I don’t mean MY values. Or YOUR values. I mean the really simple stuff that surely we can all agree on, whatever our gender or politics ? Actually, we don’t agree do we? Abusing women, physically, mentally, emotionally, is mostly fine, it seems. Women deserve it because we are inferior, or we can’t take a joke, because we have no sense of humour. Porn - and look up the stats yourself, is overwhelmingly violent and abusive to women, and a lot of it centres on underage/ child abuse. That’s kinda fine too, it seems. And pimps, bless ‘em, are just men who help women earn money. That’s why so many lovin’ bros are moving into OnlyFans to manage those poor women who can’t do their accounts because their boobs are in the way.

I am here on Substack and you are here too. We didn’t leave. And it’s true that most of where we put our time and money these days - even when we try to be mindful - allows hateful people and destructive ideologies to thrive. Look at the millions who aren’t careful, and who piled into Elon Musk stock just now. The richest man in the world destroyed USAID, and says he would do it again. That was money to the poorest people in the world. Musk is morally bankrupt. The markets rushed to make him wealthier.

Meanwhile, we’re still using fossil fuels, flying around the world, wearing clothes made in sweatshops, buying foods from supermarkets that drive farmers into the ground. We are happy to pay more for a cinema ticket than a chicken.

So , we are all, in different and various ways, to greater or lesser extents, compromised by our choices and our actions. There’s no Holier and Thou. And who is, or isn’t, on Substack, looks like a nothing-burger, in the sum of things.

But…

Mostly we know that murder is wrong. Mostly we know that robbing people is wrong. How basic does it have to get before we can agree - altogether now - Just Don’t Do That.

I think about the Taliban and the women of Afghanistan. I think about the fact that the whole world has abandoned the women and girls inside that hateful regime. That Western Governments are negotiating with those misogynist abusers.

No. It’s not complicated. Diplomatic. Cultural. Religious. Nuanced. Fraught. It’s wrong.

How can young people find any moral compass in this life when we have so few leaders in politics, in tech, in business, with any values at all? The ones who do profess moral leadership, like JD Vance, are nothing but fire and brimstone fundamentalists, sexist, racist, worshippers of money and power, in just the same way as the tech-bros who fund them.

Ok, there’s the Pope. Jesus! Who knew we’d be cheering on the Pope?

And I think about all this, and then I notice, here and there, among young people, a revival, yes a good old-fashioned revival. Young people are starting to read books again. And that gives me hope. It doesn’t even have to be widespread - revivals start small and their influence is far greater than their numbers. This can go wrong - it did with the MAGA movement and Brexit, but it works either side of the coin - for good or ill. We don’t, and won’t, need many people to make a difference.

I need you to be one of the people who makes a difference.

It starts by telling colleagues and friends what you are reading. Enthuse! Overshare!

Read visibly. It’s nothing to hide! Read in public. On transport. In cafes. Ask other people about what they are reading if you see them reading a book.

Show by example that you are glad to use free time for reading. Talk about what you read to your family or loved ones, even and especially, if they are not interested.

Recruit members for your bookclub. Start your bookclub!

Have a blackboard or whiteboard at work and in your home, and write up great quotes from what you are reading. Poetry is especially good here.

What has this got to do with value-free tech platforms and a world where leaders are actively anti-values?

I guess I’ve come to believe that quiet virtue isn’t enough. We have to be more vocal. This is what I believe. This is what I believe in. This is what’s important to me. This is who I am. And it means calling out silliness - how many people did you hear this week opining that climate change is a hoax? It means calling out sexism. Women are not inferior to men. It means challenging Big Tech’s ambitions to control our lives. It does mean writing to politicians, to companies, and yes, complaining to the likes of Substack. Tech used to love to pretend to be the Good Guys. The Liberators. Substack was helping good writers to make a living. Facebook was about the ‘sharing’ economy. Well, let’s help them all be Good by telling them - because they seem to have NO IDEA on their own - what’s not good.

Reading moves slow and mends things.

Your poor brain is overloaded - reading dissolves mental clutter.

Reading takes your hand off the panic button. Reading helps you breath. Reading will lower your blood pressure. Reading will focus your mind. Reading gives us courage. And we need courage in this careless abusive world.

Reading is not This or That. Reading is the Other. Reading allows you to build a different value system. One based on critical thinking and imaginative capacity. Two qualities lacking in the way we do business and manage our lives. Everything conspires against critical thinking. We are not required to imagine.

Reading asks a lot of us. Reading gives back much more

.

So here we are. Trying for regime change one book at a time.