This might be viewed and often is on this site as a division of men into various groups of men, be that religious, racial, intellectual, or some perception of right and wrong among other things … class or status is something we claim to have overcome but not so much when there are the cases we don’t hear about.

Over the preceding 50 years we’ve seen a transition from a predominantly sacred society to a more secular society and individual based rights rather than collective obligation.

This “law of the individual” is politically convenient when it comes to the game of divide and rule and the political mischief of the narrative.

I don’t recall a discussion here though of, division of the individual, in the sense of not able to be divided, which is the essential etymology of the word.

We tend to talk about an attack on us, as the male gender, our rights, our status as fathers, or our identities but not as a soul destroying exercise – the crushing of the individual spirit – which the family court is so apt to do – there’s a slow trail of bodies over many years that’s become very matter of fact rather than sentient.

I noticed this week the English court judgement on hate speech had warned of the perception of the individual being a step too far in determining the value of hate speech.

Rather than the preservation of free speech I saw that more as a defence of the integrity for the individual against claims of victim status – in that respect, the behaviour of our family court not allowed to wander lose on the streets with the enforcement left to the discretion of the police.

It’s quite a complex judgement beyond the summary and one we shouldn’t ignore when it comes to the inclination of our own feminised society to dwell as it usually does on the lowest denominator in preservation of its ideals.

We’re suffering under a similar weight of Covid demands where the dissection of the individual is secondary if not insignificant to the political demands of our administration.

It’s a step past democracy in that respect, far from love and kindness, and not so open and transparent with so many people being sucked into the pit of panic and deception.