My Lent book, Slubgrip Instructs is laid out with one reading per day from Shrove Tuesday through Easter Monday.
In it the demon Slubgrip is teaching Popular Culture 101 (known in the slang of Bowelbages University as Pop Cult 101)
For a taster, here is today’s reading, in which Slubrip lectures his unruly class on Individualism.
Chamber 101
Door closes. Bell clanging. Crowd voices and movement. Slubgrip:
Grimwort, prod those latecomers, will you?(A yelp.) That’s better. Move along slugs, move along.
I hope you have read the next chapter of your text—“Individualism and Anarchy.” Now pay attention as I outline the various forms of relativism that we cultivate in popular culture.
Shanklin, do stop sniveling there like a seventh-grade human female. It’s a disgusting habit. So you’ve been bullied a bit. So what? It should toughen you up, but all you do is cry like a baby maggot. In my experience those who are bullied usually deserve it. Move to the back of the class at once. I can’t bear to be near you. That’s right, sit next to Snort. Perhaps he’ll be a good influence on you.
My dear worms, one of the main ways of making relativism stick is to ensure that your patient considers himself to be the center of the universe. I’m talking about individualism. This is the idea that each individual is the sole arbiter not only of taste, but of moral choices, political ideas, religious beliefs—everything.
You must nurture in your patient the idea that he is unique. If he has any form of artistic talent, make him believe that he is one of a kind—a solitary, unappreciated genius. “The lonely poet starving in his garrett”—that sort of thing. If your patient is more inclined to business or sports, build up an image in their mind of the lone figure at the top of their profession. Give him an image of himself as a titan among mere mortals.
That’s like you, isn’t it, Grimwort? The lonely talented genius? The unappreciated magnificent Master Tempter Toad? Master of the Mediocre, I’d say.
Laughter, snorts, howls and giggles.
This individualism I’m talking about has many side benefits, worms. First of all, a nice crop of pride can be grown in the little brute’s soul. Secondly…are you taking notes?…you can get your patient to imagine that because of his genius he is above the law. Is there a pesky moral regulation keeping him back? Tell him he is above those petty rules. He is one of the great ones. Thirdly, use his individualism to keep him isolated from ordinary people with common sense—he will especially avoid the types who might pop his balloon and tell him what an arrogant imbecile he is. Fourthly, it is easy to lead certain types from individualism into eccentricity and then from eccentricity into perversion and from perversion into downright depravity. I once had a patient who was so proud of being “different” that he explored ever more depraved pleasures and ended up abducting and torturing small children. Ahh, those were the days!
What we want for most of our patients is for each to assume that they are the ones who make all the choices. They decide everything. It goes without saying that they must reject any form of authority or external discipline.
One of my favorite lines to use in this respect is “Judge not that ye be not judged.” Get your patient to memorize this one, and when anyone should dare to correct them, guide them in the path towards the Enemy or suggest that there is a right and wrong way to behave, you can get them to shriek, “Who do you think you are to judge me!!” Continue Reading
Learn more about Slubgrip Instructs here.
