Just when I thought I had seen and heard it all, last week a friend and colleague challenged me to throw a bucket of ice-cold water over my head, film the whole thing, and post it on Facebook. As if that weren’t bizarre enough, he also asked me to give money to an organisation I had never heard of, for my pains.

Naturally I ignored the challenge, as any half-rational person would. I didn’t throw ice-cold water over my head, nor did I donate money to an organisation I had never heard of. Here’s why.

First, the schmaltzy bit. It’s safe to assume that ALS is a terrible disease. (As opposed to what, a pleasant one?) It’s also nice to wheel out a bit of human solidarity and sympathise with and help those who suffer from it. Most of us do that all the time, which is why the shops at hospital enjoy such a brisk trade in flowers and orange juice.

Thing is, I really don’t see how this whole ice-challenge business links up to that fine logic. The clue, it seems, is in the word ‘awareness’. Only it happens that one of the people who suffer from a variant of ALS is Stephen Hawking. He’s had it for decades and his struggle with its physical and especially its speech consequences are well known. Suffice it to say that Hawking’s voice is more famous than his equations.

Hawking is the former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. That makes him the successor of Isaac Newton and Charles Babbage, among others. He’s also the author of best-selling popular science books. For one, A Brief History of Time, sold over 10 million copies.

Now if that wasn’t enough to raise awareness on ALS, I really can’t see how a video of yours truly pouring water over his relatively empty head might.

Only my premise is wrong. Hawking’s case did, in fact, transform motor neurone disease into a superstar rogue. The real trouble is that ‘awareness’ is little more than a cliché that’s linked to a contemporary meme that allows us to enjoy a facile moral comfort while not actually doing very much about things.

So I’m aware of the war in Syria and the viciousness of the regime in North Korea. Would it make any difference if I weren’t? Not really.

But how about the donations? Even if I’m right about the uselessness of awareness, surely the cheques matter? I doubt it. First, we don’t even know who we’re donating to, and how the money will be used. Second, medical research is not a simple matter of throwing money at people in white coats and expecting them to deliver the tablets.

Third, I find this whole donations thing insufferably sanctimonious. The pathetic spectacle of wet people writing cheques and holding them up to the camera has all but spoiled my summer. I’m not moralising, by the way, just saying that the spectacle makes me want to cringe, even as I slit my wrists. The only reason I didn’t donate sperm and post a video is that I value my freedom.

Speaking of which, I joined Facebook five months ago. Every day I get dozens of postcards (or whatever they’re called) telling me to be myself, to think outside the box, to think different, to take a leaf out of Steve Jobs’s notebook, and such and such. And now this, an epidemic of imbecile mimicry and collective banality. The mind boggles.

That’s the nice bit. The real devil is in the choreography. Remember that brat who did silly things in the schoolyard just to seek attention? The ice-bucket challenge is somewhere along those lines, only this time every child in the schoolyard is an attention-seeking brat. Well, almost every child.

Naturally I ignored the challenge,as any half-rational person would

The challenge puts two types out in the wilderness. The first is made up of those who aren’t nominated.

I mean it probably doesn’t matter all that much to those who are happy to get on with their lives, but can you imagine what someone like Franco Debono must be going through? The suffering, the pain, and the long shadow of the prophecy of irrelevance.

The second type includes those who are nominated but choose to ignore the challenge. It seems scarcely possible, a take on the lone protester in front of a tank at Tiananmen even.

I won’t comment on why I think Joseph Muscat took to it like the proverbial duck (not Peking). But take Simon Busuttil, whose heart was obviously not in it. He first gave in to the donations bullying and very quickly succumbed to not one but three redeeming buckets. Someone called it a PR disaster and I agree. It’s clear he thought he couldn’t afford to be left out.

Add to that Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Acting Police Commissioner, and the rest. The charm of the ice-bucket challenge seems to be to join the lowest common denominator. Splendid.

There’s another thing. A good number of our local visionaries took the opportunity to stir up old grudges and nominate opponents of some sort.

For example, Charles Polidano nominated “dak il-bravu” (“that smart aleck”) Mark Micallef, obviously not his favourite journalist. He did so even as he wrote a cheque to charity. One measure of saccharine, two of bile, a handful of ice, and the choice cocktail of summer 2014 is ready to serve.

In sum, two fingers to the ice-bucket challenge. I don’t think that makes me particularly special, just not part of a crowd of people united in their silliness.

mafalzon@hotmail.com