The deaths you see, the deaths you don't

 In 1776, thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence from England.  My ancestors were neither here nor there, as the turn of phrase goes.  I could guess where they were, roughly, but let me take a moment count the fucks I give about where they were OK I'm done.  Pop quiz time.  Write down your best guess about that number of fucks.  This is Fuck-count A.  I was going to say, "Fuck-count 1," but one is a counting number, and let's not mix up anything.  Fuck-count A shall be the number of fucks I give about where my ancestors were in 1776.  Got it?  OK, let's move on to your next question.  How many fucks do you think I give about where your ancestors were in 1776?  We shall call this, "Fuck-count B."  Why are we only counting the fucks that I give?  I'll give you a hint.  How many fucks do you think I give about how many fucks you give?  Write that down.  That's "Fuck-count C."  Got it?  OK, that's three counts of fucks.  The fucks I give about where my ancestors were in 1776, the fucks I give about where your ancestors were in 1776, and the fucks I give about how many fucks you give.  OK, ready to check your math?  Scroll down for the answers.

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Fuck-count A = 0

Fuck-count B = 0

Fuck-count C = 0

I regret that I have but zero fucks to give.  There are things about which a reasonable person may not only sell, but give a fuck.  Check with your lawyer about the former, and your philosopher about the later, but consider.  My ancestors were not in the new world in 1776, but that is a thing about which I do not give a fuck.  I owe no allegiance to the countries in which they resided (and from which they fled).  On the other hand, the Declaration of Independence has a lot of awesomeness.  Some ickiness?  Yes, but a lot of awesomeness, and because of that awesomeness, those of us who tend not to be safe around the world are comparatively safe here.  Allegiance to no person, no office, no flag and no bullshit, but to defensible first principles.

For those principles, people who were not my ancestors fought a revolution.  A revolution against royalty.  Against the concept that rulership comes through ancestry.  Consent of the governed, not bloodline, because bloodline is among the many things about which I lack the spare fucks to give.  Sorry, but inflation in the fuck economy means that I need to spend my fucks on the things that matter, and bloodlines?  Nope.  Bring down the fuck-price of everything else, and maybe then I'll have enough disposable fucks to waste on that kind of frivolous shit, but as is, I need to be a little more fuck-conscious.  As Elaine would say, this just isn't sponge-worthy.

What makes a person royal, with or without cheese?  Bloodline.  It is a thing, not only about which I do not care, but about which I assertively do not care.  There are things about which I passively do not care, like pottery.  There are people who are into pottery.  OK.  Whatever.  Enjoy.  It does not hold my interest, but I have no emotional investment in my disinterest.  Then there are things like sport.  Sport does not hold my attention, yet it does merely bore me.  I am assertively and emotionally invested in my disinterest.  Why?  And... huh?!  Well, the thing is that people who are into pottery don't care that I'm not, just as weirdos like me who obsess over obscure science fiction do not demand that EVERYONE spend as much time reading the hot new author as I do.  Will I post about it on a blog that nobody reads?  Yeah, but that's as far as it goes, and key phrase:  "that nobody reads."  I don't go around shoving the book in people's faces, hassling them with shocked grievance when I discover that they have not read it, unwilling to let it fucking go.

Those who obsess over sport do not want to let me live a life without sport.  They prod and nag, and nag, and prod and pester and harass and harangue and... and that is why I have emotional investment in my disinterest rather than merely a passive disinterest.  Pottery people don't care that you don't care about pottery.  Be like pottery people.

My view of royalty is closer to my view of sport because it is ideologically and philosophically rooted.  This country exists because it fought a war to get away from royalty.  I give a fuck about not giving a fuck about royalty.  I care about how much I don't care.  As opposed to pottery, with respect to which I do not care about the fact that I do not care, and so on, ad infinitum.

Your ancestors don't make you special.  They don't make you anything, except a person who exists.  The rest is up to you, and never demand that I give a fuck about the dead.  The dead aren't doing anything.  Sometimes their cadavers are serving as educational tools, or their organs might be organ-ing away in someone else, but other than that, you've got something ranging from ash to wormfood to chemically-preserved land-hog.

In no case do these things bestow meaning upon you.  You want meaning?  Do something meaningful.  That's on you.  Your responsibility.  It ain't a freebee, by right of inheritance.

Yet someone died, and a family is grieving.  That does mean something.  Everything I just wrote tips towards crass, because, well...  My moral philosophy is rooted in utilitarianism.  Bentham, Mill, all that stuff.  Honestly, it's a straight shot from there to Spock.  Waterborne pathogens kill 10,000 people a day.  It would be financially and technologically easy for the developed world to stop it, but they are nameless, faceless people in poor countries, many of which were once British colonies, and exploited by the now-deceased's ancestors.

One's death shuts down all other news.  The world ignores the rest.  No, I'm not going to do a "colonialism" rant.  I am pointing out the discrepancy in attention.  And yet, here was a thing that bugged me.  The family in mourning, and oh, the poor family which must mourn in public!

Yeah, that's because you assholes are shoving cameras in their faces as though these people mean fucking anything.  As though they count for more than the 10,000 people who die every day due to waterborne pathogens, just because of who their ancestors were.  Do we really want to discuss those ancestors?  Really?  Because that's why they are getting the attention.

My position is that your ancestors don't mean shit.  And if that's the case, then let a grieving family grieve in peace.  But if they are more than that, because ancestry matters, then you do have to deal with that leftist, anti-colonialist crap.

While 10,000 people die every day due to waterborne pathogens.  I think they count for as much, on a person-for-person basis.  That's 10,000 times the tragedy, every day, ignored.  That's just the waterborne pathogens part.  I haven't factored in malaria, or anything else.

So who's the calloused one?

I missed jazz yesterday.  Here's Brian Blade, "Variations of a Bloodline," from Perceptual.