In his later writings, the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor Adorno is constantly fixated on the question of what it is to ‘philosophise after Auschwitz’: how can we, that is, think philosophically in a way that does not do violence to the historical fact of the Holocaust, the immense human suffering of those who died in the camps?
On 20th September 2015, the news broke that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, had had sexual intercourse with the head of a dead pig while at university. This historical fact leaves us with an analogous, but opposite problem to Adorno’s. How can we think philosophically in a way that does sufficient violence to the existence of a world in which the head of our government has had sex with a pig?
At this point, over 24 hours since the allegations first surfaced, it no longer matters if they are true. Apparently there is photographic evidence somewhere of the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, performing the act he is said to have performed on the pig. If it appears, we’ll know. But really, it’s not all that important that we are ever given this sort of evidence for the claim. We know. To look at the face of David Cameron is now, and always has been, to look into the face of a pigfucker: his face, is the face of a man who fucks pigs. I think probably we always secretly suspected he was a pigfucker: there was always something a bit off about his face, that previously would have been attributed, I think, to a sort of posh-guy phoniness, like he was trying to convince us he was just a regular bloke whilst constantly struggling against the urge to smash a bottle of champagne over a tramp. But now we know, now we know what it really was: the fact is that David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was always secretly trying to suppress the memory of the time that he fucked a pig.
And this fact, the fact of what the Prime Minister has done to a pig, with his penis, makes complete and total sense: indeed, at this point, now we’ve had time enough to start to digest the news, I’m tempted to say that it is the only thing that makes sense any more. And this is why we no longer need any evidence for it: asking someone to offer a proof of the proposition that the Prime Minister fucks pigs, would be a bit like asking them to provide a proof of the external world. If anything is true, then this is. All other propositions now must be evaluated in the light of the overwhelming truth of the fact that the Prime Minister has had sex with a pig.
On the one hand, this might be considered an incredibly depressing realisation. For us today, the most true thing is that the Prime Minister has had sex with a pig. What does this say about the universe? There is no God, effectively, except for the Prime Minister, David Cameron, sticking his cock, whether flaccid or erect (that is actually an interesting question, for the interpreters of this event to consider as schools of thought develop around it, over the coming millennia) into the head of a dead pig during an initiation into some weird Oxford sex club for poshos as a teenager. What grounds all meaning in the universe, is effectively something utterly pointless, meaningless, and disgusting. Why bother to exist at all, in a world where the only truth is the Prime Minister fucking a pig?
On the other hand though, the realisation that the only really true thing is the Prime Minister having had full sexual intercourse (to completion? Again, a question for the scholars) with the dead head of a pig must be felt to be incredibly liberating. The Prime Minister fucked a pig: this is the truth of all reality, so reality doesn’t matter! We’re free to do what we like with it! The Prime Minister fucked a pig: that’s it. Beyond this nothing is true, and everything is permitted.
Reality typically manifests as a demand to obey it, to bow to it in our thinking or our action. This might involve a demand to do justice to it ethically, as Adorno was compelled to do by the fact of Auschwitz; or it might, more familiarly, just involve the demand that we bend ourselves to its laws (the laws of physics, of the marketplace, or of our governmental institutions). With #pigfuckgate, all of that is thrown out of the window. Why the fuck should I obey anything about reality? Reality has installed a pigfucker as Prime Minister. In so doing it has, as far as I see things, voided all claims it has over me. No longer do I need to attempt to think sensibly, or realistically. Doing so would only be to capitulate, on some level, to the pigfuckers. Now I must think wildly, recklessly, violently. It is imperative that my imagination soars as far away from this wretched, tiny, pigfucking world as it dares.
I think this is why, ever since I found out that the Prime Minister has fucked a pig, I’ve felt calmer, happier. The world seems, I think, more like a home. Just walking down the street yesterday, even in the pouring rain, I felt elevated, like I was somehow beyond the streets, like there was happiness waiting for me out there, wherever I went. The Prime Minister fucks pigs. Orienting ourselves to this fact, humanity can finally be free. There are no limits, any more, except for one, completely absurd truth. With this move, a better world is possible: indeed, a better world will always be possible. Like Jesus dying on the cross, David Cameron sticking his nob into a dead pig’s mouth has offered us, as a species, the possibility of redemption.
Infinitely Full Of Hope 
Talking of unnatural acts, in Violence and the Sacred René Girard notes “This rite forms part of an overall ritualistic procedure that prescribes the other transgressions the king must commit before he takes office. For example, he must eat certain forbidden foods, and commit certain acts of violence”. The sacred monarchy is founded on the transgressor king who focuses the crowd’s hatred upon his person. In so doing he forges the crowd and its violence into the foundation of society. Girard also notes that Christ revealed the lie behind the violence of the crowd, but this is another story.