Double Standards.

The world is truly a fantastic place. Regardless of what people say or the contrary evidence we see, the world remains perhaps the best form of entertainment in this life. Every day there is always something new that makes you jump out of your seat, whether out of excitement or fear. There is another thing that makes this world fascinating: the sheer number of contradictions we accept even though they are completely wrong. I’m not joking: if you look around, there are so many strange and peculiar ideas and mindsets that you could lose your mind... or write a blog post about them.

So, today I was wondering: why not talk about it? Why not gut all those small and large contradictions that make this world a magnificent place?

War for Peace.

In the past, war was always something linear: I want something you have, I don’t want to negotiate, so I’ll cut off your head and burn your castle and all the lands you control. No one masked it with noble aims. The justification for war was out in the open, understandable by everyone.

Since 2001, since two towers in New York met a nasty end, the world has changed its rhetoric. The excuse is no longer power or control, but something more "noble" and acceptable: we are going to bring peace and democracy to countries where peace and democracy do not exist. As if the world were so stupid as to believe this excuse. We have seen in the Middle East for at least 20 years how this exportation of freedom and democracy has occurred with disastrous results. And we saw it in Iran. It’s a controversial topic for two rather massive reasons.

Firstly, it is truly ironic that one brings peace and democracy through violence and authoritarian control. The West—the United States—talks about exporting peace and democracy to the world, but they forget to export it through the right means, namely diplomacy, knowledge, exchange, and dialogue, exporting it instead with bombs, death, and destruction. You cannot bring peace and freedom through war and oppression. It’s like saying "we guarantee safety" by using a nightstick instead of improving the law and supporting justice, or trying to fight diabetes by forcing the poor patient to eat sweets all day. Even reasoning in these terms is just stupid.

Then we have the detail of democracy. The United States, and the West in general, always has this presumption of always being right—that their lifestyle is correct, while everyone else is always wrong and their lifestyle is mistaken. Thus, there is this idea of "saving populations in difficulty." Breaking News: nobody ever asked for help. No one, especially in the Middle East, has ever asked anyone to "come save us." Iran didn't ask for it in the '50s, Afghanistan and Iraq didn't ask for it in the early 2000s, and Iran didn't ask for it again in 2026. Yet we convinced ourselves that we had to save those poor people... poor people whom we Westerners sent to ruin, destroying infrastructure, killing innocents, and bringing total instability to those countries. If the Islamic State was born and committed massacres in Europe, it is solely the fault of the West and its desire to force other populations to live as we want.

We must not, however, be confused or blinded by the rhetoric. The reason for war is always the same: power, even though it is masked as a "humanitarian mission." In the end, it’s always about control—of any kind. It is easier to kill the dictator to get that control than it is to talk. I’ll give a simple example: if Iran is currently a country "crying out in misery," it is because of the economic war that the West has been carrying out for years through the thousands of sanctions the West has forced Tehran to swallow.

Third World: Theft and Support.

War, as ugly as it is, is something visible that newspapers love to report. What is killing a part of the world, however, is what goes unseen. We all know that two faces of the world exist: the first and the third world. The first world is where we have drinking water, electricity, and money. In the third world, they don't have these opportunities. Why? This is the great contrast. I have only one question: why is there this difference? If you think it’s the fault of dictators who only care about profit, you are only looking at one part of reality.

The real reason those populations are starving is because of us—that same West. For centuries the West, always thinking it was better, expanded through violence, conquering territories and annexing nations in the name of a social and technological progress that the West claimed to have but never actually possessed. If you have to prove your superiority through violence, you are not superior. That violent exportation of progress was only to obtain minerals and wealth from other nations and increase one's own power. Then the oppressed nations rebelled, kicked out the invader, and "freed" themselves.

Under these conditions, one might think the West had lost all its power. No, the power simply shifted from being overt to hidden. No longer being able to invade anything, we have supported and are supporting bloodthirsty dictators; we have toppled governments, all to satisfy the West’s conditions for exploiting those same resources that were previously obtained through violence.

Where is the contradiction? Well, on one hand, we secretly oppress the third world, reducing it to hunger. On the other, the same West publicly invests billions in the third world, trying in every way to give it the dignity that every civilization should have. The communication is always the same: we must help oppressed and weak populations to give them the dignified existence they deserve, especially regarding children. It would be a truly noble gesture and a sign of a population with apparent tact and sensitivity, if only it weren't a massive facade.

It's like beating someone up only to then treat their wounds. It’s unthinkable, yet we have been able to do it. Not only that: the same exploited and robbed populations even tell us thank you. That is, away from the world's eyes, we sign exploitation agreements with a nation, send it nearly to ruin, and then the UN, America, and the EU send billions in support... support that wouldn't be necessary if we treated other nations with respect.

Loving Mothers, but Hating Women.

The world runs at two speeds that will never intersect. In the first world, we count deaths and few whimpers; in poor countries, life explodes despite everything. Logic would dictate that well-being feeds offspring, yet the exact opposite happens: the "richer" we are, the less we reproduce. Is it selfishness? Is it the end of the maternal instinct? On paper, we live in a paradise of opulence, so why doesn't every woman have three or four children? It’s mathematics. One must not make the huge mistake of thinking that women in the industrial world don’t want to have children because they are selfish. Many women in the first world dream of large families, of raising the next generation. But then they collide with reality.

The questions one must ask are twofold: "Are we sure we are really that rich?" and "What are governments doing to help?"

The reality for a woman and a couple is quite different. To the first question, the answer is a flat NO. Ours is a facade of wealth. Salaries are stuck in the last century, rents eat half the paycheck, and bills take the rest. Many women still live in their old teenage bedrooms because an apartment has become a luxury good, and those who have an apartment must choose between paying for electricity or buying groceries. In such a context, bringing a child into the world isn't an act of love; it’s a leap into the void without a parachute—an act of pure madness that risks destroying two lives: the mother’s and the child’s. You cannot give life to someone if your own is a daily exercise in financial tightrope walking. A child should be a joy, not the cause of your economic failure.

If there isn't much money for workers, perhaps things are different regarding childcare policies. The question is clear: "What are governments doing to help?" The answer is: nothing. Governments don’t invest in childhood. Daycares are as rare and expensive as a Harvard Master’s degree, bonuses are mere crumbs, and family support is nonexistent.

Here the contradiction becomes grotesque. This is where political magic kicks in: after leaving women alone in the desert, rulers take to the pulpit to give moral lessons.

What politicians do is, on one hand, claim to have made giant strides in giving women the chance to have children—having effectively not lifted a finger—and on the other, they label those same women "selfish" because they aren't exploiting this incredible opportunity to procreate (an opportunity that doesn't exist). It is collective gaslighting. Politicians accuse women of holding the country's future hostage, of sabotaging the pension system out of pure whim, as if they apparently enjoy hurting themselves by avoiding motherhood on purpose and suffering in the process. What politics deliberately ignores is that the choice is between surviving or drowning along with a newborn.

If governments were serious, motherhood wouldn't be a heroic mission or financial martyrdom, and we would see pregnant women (with or without partners) everywhere. A woman or a couple today must choose between surviving or becoming a mother/parent, and survival always remains the priority. If survival were guaranteed and well-being were real, delivery rooms would fill up again. As long as the priority remains making it to the end of the month, the "choice" doesn't exist. Only the instinct for self-preservation exists.

I Love Fat, but on Others.

Our appearance has always been a detail of our lives that has always caused us difficulty. For centuries, we had "beauty standards" for both sexes that had to be met, otherwise we were left out or excluded from the society that mattered. These standards were also present in love and physical relationships: for example, a fat man or woman had little chance of being happy in love and in the bedroom.

Things, however, changed a few years ago. Especially the female world decided to fight this physical detail of social life, claiming that "every woman is beautiful just as she is!", introducing the concept of "body positivity," and opening the stage to women who were not thin—the so-called "curvy" women. While on one hand this movement was truly positive, on the other (like all modern movements led by women), anyone who didn't think like them was labeled a "bad person" and publicly humiliated for "body shaming."

For years we had women of every size proudly exposing their bodies and receiving positivity. There was a period where even major fashion brands were forced to raise the weight and size limits in fashion shows and advertising campaigns to include women with a few extra pounds, just to avoid a media backlash and a drop in sales.

Where is the contradiction? No woman truly believed that lie. It was just a trend to get a couple more likes. As soon as the women who, until the day before, were encouraging body positivity saw that it no longer provided visibility and that the world was fighting the promotion of obesity as a healthy model to praise, they immediately abandoned ship.

How did it end? Well, the same women who previously loved calling themselves "champions of body positivity" no longer are. A glaring example is Selena Gomez. During that period, the American superstar had gained weight, claiming to love her "curvy" body. Now that same person has a lean and thin body. Like her, there have been many women who applied this strategy. Contradictory, don't you think?

I Use the Body, but I Condemn It.

The contradiction when it comes to prostitution is something incredible.

It is said that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. In truth, prostitution has a very complicated history, and saying it is a "job" isn't exactly correct, given that throughout history, prostitution was often a forced and violent act. However, we accept the fact that for millennia women have granted their bodies, whether because they were forced or to create an independent life.

Let's reason together. Prostitution has been and still is condemned by the law, but above all by morality, for millennia. Many have tried to fight it with violence, others with prohibition; however, prostitution is still here, more present than ever.

The question I ask myself is this: how has something so hated survived so long? In the market, if something is not in demand, it isn't produced and disappears into thin air (just look at the portable CD player). This means prostitution was in demand. Not only that: it was in such high demand that it survived for millennia in society.

Today, the use of the human body for carnal pleasure in exchange for money is an act rooted in all social classes and both sexes. Prostitution serves the working class, the bourgeoisie, the political class, and the nobility. I wouldn't be surprised if the clergy were involved too. If even priests and cardinals were involved, it would be the height of contradiction: for years you banish prostitutes outside the city and then you exploit them for carnal pleasures you shouldn't even have.

Reading this paragraph, one might think it’s all out in the open. The funny thing is, it isn’t. All over the world, politicians and those in power—who use prostitution massively—officially abolish it and prevent it as if it were a social plague, as if prostitution were the element destroying social morality. Prostitution is treated as perhaps even worse than launching a missile at a school or a hospital.

It is incredible how prostitution is so widespread, used, and secretly appreciated, yet officially condemned. But we shouldn't even be surprised: it has always happened. Let's say it's one of those constants of the world that we look at with tenderness, like that relative at Christmas you only see once a year.

Regardless, it’s always amusing how men use women for their own pleasure and then feel ashamed of it publicly, trying to wash their consciences by thinking that abolishing something they use is the path to heaven. It’s like doing drugs and saying that drugs are bad.

Final Thoughts.

At the end of the day, looking at this list of absurdities, one wonders if the world has truly gone mad or if, simply, consistency is a luxury we can no longer afford. We live in an era that asks us to be everything and the opposite of everything: we must be pacifists with weapons in hand, philanthropists while exploiting our neighbors, exemplary mothers in a system that provides no space for children, and champions of acceptance yet ready to run to the surgeon as soon as the trend winds change.

Perhaps the true double standard is the one we apply to ourselves every morning in the mirror. We like to think of ourselves as victims of a convoluted system, when often we are its most well-oiled gears. We condemn injustice with a post written from a smartphone produced under inhumane conditions; we invoke freedom, but only as long as it doesn't trample our privileges.

The world is indeed a fantastic place, yes, but one of a grotesque beauty. It is a theater where the script says one thing and the actors do another, convinced that no one notices. But as long as we have the strength to stop and look at these contradictions, gutting them without fear of appearing cynical, we have at least one hope: that of stopping being passive spectators of this play and finally starting to call things by their names.

Because the truth is that we don't need new rules or new slogans. We only need the courage to admit that, very often, the monster we criticize in others is just the reflection of what we have accepted to become for the sake of pure convenience.

M.