The Undead Smart Set

Greetings and salutations,

Moving with the right crowd when you aren’t really part of it can be done, but be aware that there are a whole number of social faux pas waiting to get you.  There are seemingly innocent ones like the fact that it simply isn’t all right to serve a sorbet between the fish and main courses, but there are other, less obvious ones as well.

One of the nice things about high society is that almost no topic is off-limits.  As long as you don’t descend to direct insults of the host, you can get away with pretty much anything.  This is a sophisticated crowd that likes to pretend that it has few insecurities and fewer hangups.  Trust me on this…  Or are you going to believe middle class writers pretending they know what they’re talking about?  The “Baron” in my name isn’t there for show, you know.

There is, however, one conversational error that is bound to get you shunned as a bumpkin yokel gate-crasher even before you finish the first sentence: the conspiracy theory.  If you go to the right party and say something like “I hear the government has made a deal with the car companies to keep cars from going electric”, you will soon notice that people, like the red sea under the influence of Moses, will move away from you almost like magic.  No, it isn’t your body odor, it’s your big mouth.

You see, most conspiracy theories will fall under the slightest application of logic, general knowledge or science (because they are usually made up out of the pipe dreams of people who don’t know any better) and the crowd around you is a well-educated bunch who spotted six flaws in your argument and decided that, amusing as it might be to shoot you down in great detail, it also entails the risk that someone might ssee them talking to you.

The few theories that don’t collapse under their own weight (I’d love to hear one) are even worse, because you are probably surrounded by people with access to the truth, so it’s a no-win for you: if you are wrong, you’re an idiot for thinking something so dumb, if you are right, you’re an idiot for making a big deal out of yesterday’s news.

The final category, as rare as hen’s teeth, is that in which you are completely right.  In this case, you’re also better off keeping your mouth shut, because the room likely holds at least one person who will want you dead after you blabbed.  Everyone will move away from you in order to be out of the line of fire.

By the way, don’t take this as permission to go around believing that the fact that people are out to kill you has something to do with your little pet theory.  Your pet theory is probably really dumb, and they are out to kill you to rid the world of your personality. 

This sometimes happens.  I have often tracked down and eaten some particularly idiiotic internet conspiracy theorist.  This usually leads to theories regarding what’s happened to them – and the theories are usually as laughable as the rest of the content on these sites.

Oh, well, at least it makes selecting victims less of a chore.

See you soon,

Baron H