Demonise. (Or how removing the humanity of your opponent negates your argument.)

Wherever you go, when the subject of conversation turns to hideous, mind-boggling acts of evil, you will often find people leaping to conclusions. Whether those conclusions are about the perpetrator or the circumstances, generally, those conclusions form part of a psychological defensive reaction.

Excising a cancer.

Well, sometimes we write things that we look back upon and deeply regret. Sometimes, you get people latching on to what you have written and trying to use you as a sounding board for a number of daft ideas that circulate in their brain, such as it is.

And sometimes, when normalistic keyboard warriors write and tell you theirs is the only viewpoint or idea that counts, the manner in which they do so makes you utterly regret having mentioned them in your work or anything that you do. I think the word “disgust” is what I am looking for.

So the subject that this post used to be about will not feature here anymore. Why publicise someone who speaks to or about you in the manner these people have?

Paul Verhoeven is awesome. Part one of millions.

Every artist, whether they are a writer, a musician, a painter, or photographer, has influences. Some broadcast their influences more than others. But we all have them, and different influences work upon us to different degrees. As an aspiring author and storyteller, I do not mind telling you that one influence in particular overrides all others where I am concerned. That influence is the work of the Dutch director named Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven frequently alludes to things in audio commentaries that have to do with his childhood in The Netherlands during the second World War. One thing he mentions at least once is how the Germans would put the corpses of his countrymen on display in public. Both as a method of controlling local resistance, and to signal to the Allies that the Germans could and would kill Dutchmen if they encountered sufficient trouble. So if one wants to search for an influence upon Paul Verhoeven‘s methodology in terms of storytelling and depicting violence, World War II is the first, last, and possibly only place to look.

A common, and sorely mistaken, theme in reviews of Verhoeven‘s films is that he directed it, ergo it will not be subtle. No offense to the reviewers concerned, but fukk you. The difference between Paul Verhoeven and what Hollywood feels to be acceptable is not subtlety, but rather that Paul knows when to be subtle.