“Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today…! [etc.]”
Say What? Archive

Wild beasts of the wilderness, when war breaks into flame, follow me from the empty wastes;
Follow me, (and) you will see the blood of the foemen streaming between the hillocks and the sands.
Then return thereafter, and thank me, and remember what you have seen of my deeds,
And take sustenance of the skulls of the people for your little children and your whelps.
(‘Antara ibn Shaddād, 6th century AD, translation by A.J. Arberry)

Fakhr is a genre of Arabic poetry described as “vainglory.” It comprises both braggadocio and insult. Bellicose taunts were the mother’s milk of tribal warfare from earliest times. Ritualistic posturing, bluster and insult preceded bloodletting. When modern warfare mechanized bloodletting, trashtalk melted into the rank fissures of playground bravado, rough spectacle and frat bro crapulence.

No more.

A person surrounded by martinets and epigones of the miles gloriosus brandishes the art of the truculent rodomontade in splendid defiance of civilized norms while lighting off bombs and rockets like a kid throwing firecrackers. In rhetoric as in conduct, modalities of human behavior passed down from the 1950’s BC flourish in 2026 AD.

(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved