In life there are particular topics that have provided debate for centuries. Here, via an unnecessarily verbose expostulation substantiated by subjective opinion and fuck-all else, I attempt to resolve one of those particular debates in spite of the glaringly obvious fact that I am intellectually ill-equipped to do so.

I start with a few comments about beliefs or emotions which I will describe as if they are universally held by everyone that reads this. Then, I top that with a startlingly breviloquent account of humankind that would make even a first-year anthropology student wince, and tenuously link that into a further claim about what makes all human beings tick, without leaving any room whatsoever for the perfectly valid counterclaim that it might actually not be the case.

Unsatisfied with already slotting in words like ‘expostulation’ and ‘breviloquent’ into my article when more common words would’ve sufficed, I pat myself on my thesaurus and recall a personal anecdote that corroborates with my above claims using all manner of elongated, supererogatory words in the hubristic belief that it will give the universalised claims I made in the preceding paragraph an even greater preponderance than I already assumed them to have. Not only that but I tell it all in one sentence that stretches to about 75% of a fairly bulky paragraph, giving no quarter to readability.

Next, to put the above beyond any doubt, I follow it up with a ridiculously short paragraph in the belief that its brevity will somehow transpose all of the unsubstantiated arguments into an unavoidably logical claim that no-one can argue with. This isn’t that paragraph however.

This is that paragraph. Small isn’t it?

I follow up with what I want you to believe is a further exposition of the tiny statement above, although in reality it is nothing more than an arrogant exercise in condescension framed as the giving of wisdom. I attribute notoriously tricky concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong to a number of different actions, mixing the seemingly obvious with the curiously dubious in the belief that you will swallow all of it wholesale. I’ll then make it look like I’ve given justification to at least a few of these equations, when in reality I’ve just backed them up with equally dubious re-framings of the same contentious claims. I then move on and ignore the clunkiness of that last sentence on account of it having some intelligent-sounding words in it.

Every now and then I will make passing references to negative charges that could be made at both myself and my article, thus rendering them impotent. After all, how could I actually, possibly be – for example – sanctimonious or elitist when I identify and question both of those traits? I obviously still can be, but I carry on as if it were now an impossibility – especially given the faux-modesty I have half-heartedly tossed in at points.

Sensing the need for a conclusion at some point, I throw in a few references to highly-regarded but sufficiently esoteric intellectuals or authors, confident that the connections I make between my arguments and something that they said, however nebulous, will convince even the most critical of readers that I must know my stuff, on account of having read things.

Then finally, instead of a conclusion, I dance around all of the unsupported, highly-subjective accounts I have given with a rephrasing of the question in the form of a response. The trick is to make it look as though each paragraph has been a confident stride towards the truth; an assured leap in the direction of enlightenment; a (third phrase for positive movement) towards veracity – when in actuality, it’s been little more than a mastabatory airing of my own self-assured feelings of superiority; written in prose as purple as the head of my own metaphorical cock of an ego.

Contented with the belief that I have laid another age-old debate to rest, I leave myself enough room to drop one more pseudo-sageful paragraph to trump even my previous best in terms of its pithiness. Usefully, it manages to convey a sense of conclusion by appearing to take the form of an indisputable truth; ready to be chiseled into the stone tablets of historicity. Here it comes:

You are all beneath me.

END.