Of “It’s a Sin,” climate doom and demented/disinhibited masturbatory rituals

We watched “It’s a Sin” the other day, all five episodes. It’s the best stuff I have seen of Russell T. Davies, with many of the really cringe-inducing elements of his oeuvre gone. It’s fabulously acted too – a worthy UK equivalent to the movie “Long-time Companion.”

It covers the period 1981 to 1991, from the bliss and the pleasure, through to not just forebodings of doom but actual proper horror.

One day I might write something about how the same period covers an interesting climate change story; with growing awareness, activism and the horror not yet viscerally arriving right then and there,, but everyone’s fate being sealed… But not today.

Today I will just pick one moment, from episode four or five. SO SPOILERS.

One of the characters (won’t say which one) has been hospitalised, and is getting the AIDS-related dementia. He’s lying in bed, with his mum present, and a couple of his flat mates. And he looks at one of his flat mates, who he never actually did the deed with, and starts saying how he wanted to but never did.

Initially the object of the compliment is able to laugh it off and try to signal that they should change the subject. But of course, those sorts of subtle social cues rely on the other person having a fully-functioning pre-frontal cortex etc.

To everyone’s horror, the patient’s language continues to get more explicit, and he, er, slips a hand southwards…

A nurse turns up, shepherds everyone out.

So, where am I going with this? How does this actually fit the “climate doom” in the blog title?

Well, I’d say that our various institutions are demented/are dementing us. And they’re talking about how much they fancy things like “participation” and “democracy,” and “innovation” and “sustainability”. Those would have been great! That would have been so much fun. But the time for that has passed – it’s all just a cruel mirage now, awkward at best, stomach-churning at worst.

And in our weakened and sick state, we are unable to challenge our own rituals of pleasure. We are unable to see that they are no longer “appropriate.” The horror? It’s evinced by all the other species we ‘share’ (ha ha ha) this planet with, and with future generations. But we just don’t pick up the cues, because, along with our “civilisation,” our hands are too busy heading south.

What is to be done? Nowt. There is nothing left to do but scream.

Post inspired by this portion of a DM – “Whatever their tribe (academia, activist, local government, corporate, etc) human beings are miserable demented idiots going through the motions to make themselves happy. Like the awful scene in “It’s a Sin” that Sarah and I saw yesterday, when the … well, have you seen it?”